animate

American  

[an-uh-meyt, an-uh-mit] / ˈæn əˌmeɪt, ˈæn ə mɪt /

verb (used with object)

animated, animating

1. to give life to; make alive.

   God animated the dust.

   Synonyms:

   vitalize, quicken, vivify

   Antonyms:

   kill

2. to make lively, vivacious, or vigorous; give zest or spirit to.

   Her presence animated the party.

   Synonyms:

   fortify, energize

3. to fill with courage or boldness; encourage.

   to animate weary troops.

   Synonyms:

   exhilarate, arouse, hearten, inspirit, inspire

4. to move or stir to action; motivate.

   He was animated by religious zeal.

   Synonyms:

   prompt, kindle, urge, fire, incite, excite

5. to give motion to.

   leaves animated by a breeze.

6. to render or produce (a story, character, movie, etc.) by using animation: to animate the characters in a video game;

   to animate a children's story;

   to animate the characters in a video game;

   an animated film.

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adjective

1. alive; possessing life.

   animate creatures.

   Antonyms:

   dead

2. lively.

   an animate expression of joy.

3. of or relating to animal life.

4. able to move voluntarily.

5. Linguistics. belonging to a syntactic category or having a semantic feature that is characteristic of words denoting beings regarded as having perception and volition (opposed to inanimate).

animate British  

verb

1. to give life to or cause to come alive

2. to make lively; enliven

3. to encourage or inspire

4. to impart motion to; move to action or work

5. to record on film or video tape so as to give movement to

   an animated cartoon

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adjective

1. being alive or having life

2. gay, spirited, or lively

Usage

What does animate mean? To animate is to make lively or give spirit to. Someone can animate a dull situation by bringing some energy to it, such as with humor, music, or anything that is associated with movement or emotion. To animate also means to give motion to, the way a cartoonist or animator does with drawings. Animated media include cartoons, 3D films, video games, and visual effects. To animate also means to motivate or to encourage to take action, as in Coach really animated the team with her pre-game speech. Animate can be used as an adjective to mean lively or full of energy, as in Carly had an animate spirit that people liked to be around. Animate can also mean able to move voluntarily. It can also broadly describe any living being as separate from inanimate objects, which cannot move on their own and don’t have their own will. When animate is used as an adjective, it is pronounced as [ an-uh-mit ], rather than [ an-uh-meyt ], as the verb form is. Example: I animate characters for children’s shows using a computer program.

Related Words

Animate, invigorate, stimulate mean to enliven. To animate is to create a liveliness: Health and energy animated his movements. To invigorate means to give physical vigor, to refresh, to exhilarate: Mountain air invigorates. To stimulate is to arouse a latent liveliness on a particular occasion: Caffeine will stimulate you and keep you alert.

Other Word Forms

• animately adverb
• animateness noun
• animatingly adverb
• interanimate verb (used with object)
• nonanimate adjective
• nonanimating adjective
• nonanimatingly adverb
• semianimate adjective
• unanimating adjective
• unanimatingly adverb

Etymology

Origin of animate

1375–1425; late Middle English animat < Latin animātus filled with breath or air, quickened, animated (past participle of animāre ). See anima, -ate ¹

Explanation

At its most basic, animate means simply alive, while inanimate means not living, not moving around. But animate also means spirited, or brought to life. Animated cartoons are what we think of as pictures come to life: animation. Animate derives from the Latin anima "life, soul, spirit." When you seem particularly filled with life, or high-spirited, if you laugh loudly, or use broad gestures, you're animated.

Example Sentences

You are close to its trunk, experiencing its lofty height and its many branches spreading out like gesturing limbs of an animate creature.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 20, 2026

Such outcomes would not resolve the broader debates that animate these cases.

From Slate • Jan. 14, 2026

The third track, “Appetite,” features horns and strings to animate his story of the loneliness and isolation of life on the road.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 13, 2026

A family is visiting their grandmother for Thanksgiving at an assisted-living facility and as a treat, they’ve used an app to animate some of her old black-and-white photos using artificial intelligence.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 16, 2025

Both sets of terms, like their Greek originals, included the whole study of nature, animate and inanimate—thus Boyle’s Physiological Essays of 1661 are about natural science as a whole.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Related Words

• energize
• enliven
• exalt
• excite
• hearten
• inspire