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
The vivacity of the art form broke through the screen courtesy of Erivo’s capacity to blast through any barrier with her truthful virtuosity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2025
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
Her creations combine the playful vivacity of Alexander Calder and the woven robustness of Ruth Asawa and Janet Echelman with the optical intelligence of Bridget Riley and the ethereal delicacy of Lygia Pape.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 14, 2023
Not that Trabb’s boy was of a malignant nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it was in his constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody’s expense.
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
Life manifests in these neurotics in the form of vivacities merely; not as vitalities.
From Feminism and Sex-Extinction by Kenealy, Arabella
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 Herford, C. H. (Charles Harold)
It is imagined that the gay disposition of the young gentleman was not very suitable to the old man's temper, which was, perhaps, too grave and austere to relish the vivacities of his nephew.
From Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History by Horne, Charles F. (Charles Francis)
Whereas young Fritz has vivacities, a taste for music, finery, and excursions into forbidden realms distasteful and incomprehensible to Friedrich Wilhelm.
From The World's Greatest Books — Volume 12 — Modern History by Hammerton, John Alexander, Sir
His sympathies are unlimited; and those who think him inferior to Tasso, only do so in consequence of their own want of sympathy with the vivacities that degrade him in their eyes.
From Stories from the Italian Poets: with Lives of the Writers, Volume 2 by Tasso, Torquato
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.
