animate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to give life to; make alive.
God animated the dust.
- Antonyms:
- kill
-
to make lively, vivacious, or vigorous; give zest or spirit to.
Her presence animated the party.
-
to fill with courage or boldness; encourage.
to animate weary troops.
- Synonyms:
- exhilarate, arouse, hearten, inspirit, inspire
-
to move or stir to action; motivate.
He was animated by religious zeal.
-
to give motion to.
leaves animated by a breeze.
-
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.
adjective
-
alive; possessing life.
animate creatures.
- Antonyms:
- dead
-
lively.
an animate expression of joy.
-
of or relating to animal life.
-
able to move voluntarily.
-
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).
verb
-
to give life to or cause to come alive
-
to make lively; enliven
-
to encourage or inspire
-
to impart motion to; move to action or work
-
to record on film or video tape so as to give movement to
an animated cartoon
adjective
-
being alive or having life
-
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
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.
Vocabulary lists containing animate
Speak Your Mind: Anim
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"Frankenstein"
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"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave" by Frederick Douglass
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The silent criminal mastermind character stands outside Animate but ominously close to the existing Wallace and Gromit bronze statue bench at nearby Preston Markets, which was also opened by Park in September 2021.
From BBC • Feb. 20, 2025
Gif: Asus As if the Strix Flare II Animate didn’t have enough lighting with the 312 mini-LEDs display, Asus also added an RGB strip on the bottom.
From The Verge • Jan. 4, 2022
Animate, the creature galumphs to what is presumably a forest, where he finds canisters full of Swiss chard and berries.
From New York Times • Feb. 17, 2020
Animate the words on the page – much the same way actors, directors and lighting technicians metamorphose the words of a screenplay into a summer blockbuster.
From Fox News • Jul. 27, 2019
As all forms of life, Animate and inanimate, originate In seeds and eggs, so all infection does.
From Stories in Verse by Abbey, Henry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
