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.
Read more: Is a new OpenAI deal what Amazon’s stock needs to finally come alive?
From MarketWatch • Dec. 30, 2025
What they don't have enough of is warriors who come alive when things are going awry.
From BBC • Nov. 20, 2025
Mr. Fetterman does come alive on the subject, but mostly when he’s talking about Republican stands he agrees with.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 13, 2025
The stock has come alive over the past three months, climbing nearly 20% and shaking off a rough 10 of 11 week losing streak between February and April.
From Barron's • Oct. 29, 2025
I have no idea how to make it come alive.
From "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson
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.
