come alive
Idioms-
Also, come to life.
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Become vigorous or lively. For example, It took some fast rhythms to make the dancers come alive , or As soon as he mentioned ice cream, the children came to life . The adjective alive has been used in the sense of “vivacious” since the 1700s. Also, the variant originally (late 1600s) meant “to recover from a faint or apparent death.” [ Colloquial ; first half of 1900s]
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Appear real or believable, as in It's really hard to make this prose come to life . Also see look alive .
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.
She makes her family come alive in her jokes and reminds us all that we’re living the same life dealing with kids, dating and everyday struggles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
Ms. Bridgers is exceptionally good at writing phrases that read slightly awkwardly on paper but come alive as music, and has an eye for the telling detail that carries a raft of associations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
James Gray, communications and advocacy manager at Libraries Connected, says the summer holidays are also where libraries "come alive".
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
Shares of companies that rode high and survived the dot-com bust — but were then relegated to the tech sector’s back ranks during the decades that followed — have suddenly come alive again.
From MarketWatch ● May 15, 2026
If she came home before we went to bed, we saw the man come alive.
From "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou
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.
