noun
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the quality or condition of being vivacious
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rare (often plural) a vivacious act or expression
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of vivacity
1400–50; late Middle English < Latin vīvācitās, equivalent to vīvāc- (stem of vīvāx long-lived, lively, equivalent to vīv ( us ) alive ( see vital) + -āx adj. suffix) + -i- -i- + -tās -ty 2
Explanation
If someone says you're full of vivacity, that means you have high spirits and are full of life. Your vivacity makes you a great comedic actor because you attack the stage with endless energy. Vivacity comes from the Latin vīvācitāt-, meaning "life force," and shares a root with the word vital. You may know from medical dramas that if someone's vital signs are not good, that means he's dying. But if he is full of vivacity, that means the opposite: he's totally energetically fully alive! If you don't have much vivacity, don't become a motivational speaker.
Vocabulary lists containing vivacity
"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe
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A Streetcar Named Desire
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Stories of Ourselves
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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.
See Examples For:
To put it plainly: Julian’s imitations lacked the vivacity that made his art unique, resulting in an uncanny dissonance between idea and result.
From Salon ● Apr. 17, 2026
She said the 76-year old mother-of-four and grandmother-of-five was "a phenomenal person - full of vivacity and fun".
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2024
The collection evokes the vivacity of music and nightlife, featuring American archetypal pieces from leather biker jackets to bright graphic tees along with leopard print and the familiar electric colors of rave culture.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 5, 2023
Langlois de Swarte, his tone clear but with an appealing hint of wiry bite, played with vivacity and wit.
From New York Times ● Apr. 27, 2023
Susan Calvin rose to her feet with a vivacity almost girlish.
From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov
My cousin's vivacities began to languish and the silence seemed to shape itself into a receptacle for my verdict.
From Crucial Instances by Edith Wharton
These superficial vivacities were the slighter play of a self-consciousness which in its deeper recesses was steadily gathering power, richness, and assurance.
From Robert Browning by C. H. (Charles Harold) Herford
Either I am very much mistaken or the Parisian of yesterday will soon weary of the antiquated surroundings, and ere long regret the vivacities of her poet.
From Artists' Wives by Laura Ensor
He busied himself instead with a wonderful series of pictures, mostly of no great size, in which he showed an astonishing command over vivacities of technique and modulations of colour.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 6 "Foraminifera" to "Fox, Edward" by Various
Without some sharpness of interest I shouldn't now have the memories; but these stick to me somehow with none of the hard glue of recovered "spirits," recovered vivacities, assurances, successes.
From A Small Boy and Others by Henry James
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.
