come alive

Idioms  

1. Also, come to life.

2. 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]

3. Appear real or believable, as in It's really hard to make this prose come to life . Also see look alive .

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Example Sentences

They were strikingly lit, making them come alive.

From Los Angeles Times • May 28, 2026

But Maine is also home to charming hotels and harbor towns with seafood restaurants and seaside promenades that come alive in warm weather.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 20, 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

Where long-simmered soups deepen gradually, these come alive all at once.

From Salon • Apr. 3, 2026

Faster and faster the visions came, one after the other, until it seemed as if the very air had come alive.

From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin