vivify
Americanverb (used with object)
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to give life to; animate; quicken.
-
to enliven; brighten; sharpen.
verb
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to bring to life; animate
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to make more vivid or striking
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of vivify
First recorded in 1535–45; late Middle English from Middle French vivifier from Late Latin vīvificāre ). See vivi-, -fy ( def. )
Explanation
When you vivify something, you bring new excitement or life to it. If you decide to liven up your boring apartment by painting the walls every color of the rainbow, you can say that you're trying to vivify your home. You might vivify your family's meals by experimenting with exotic spices or vivify your school by hiring circus performers to ride unicycles up and down the halls. The Latin root word of vivify is vivus, or "alive," which is also the origin of the closely related word vivid.
Vocabulary lists containing vivify
"Train Time," Vocabulary from the short story
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"Train Time" by D'Arcy McNickle
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This Week In Culture: March 7–13, 2020
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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:
The “Ring” operas went on to vivify everything from the Nazi obsession with the Aryan superman to the blockbuster superhero of our own day.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2020
Two moving and expansive books about enduring American symbols vivify abstract ideas through surprisingly specific images.
From New York Times ● Sep. 4, 2018
Words realize nothing; vivify nothing to you, unless you have suffered in your own person the thing which the words try to describe.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 3, 2018
He will vivify the church by creating a vacuum.
From Slate ● Jan. 12, 2017
Throughout this period Admiral Dewey reports various cordial conferences with Aguinaldo, though he is not so literary as to vivify his accounts with allusions to the weather.
From The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 by James H. Blount
Elizabeth II’s 1953 coronation ceremony vivified for war-fatigued Britain the collective sentiments that make a community.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 8, 2022
However, the graceful Croatian was vivified into a grinding fightback in the second set, saving four break points and was one point away from levelling in the 10th game.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 28, 2018
In Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, the eminent presidential historian Robert Dallek has deftly vivified the two practitioners of realpolitik and their world.
From Forbes ● Jun. 13, 2014
The movie is a grim diptych of damaged daughter and destructive mother that is vivified only by the transcendent performances.
From New York Times ● Apr. 28, 2011
It had pierced, as with a fiery sword, the torpor which had unwrapped his love with its protecting armour and that love had awaked to agonised consciousness, vivified and intensified.
From The Long Lane's Turning by Hallie Erminie Rives
And as intent on vivifying culture as Bourdain was, I think he’d watch this movie and feel that there’s an authenticity that is deeply missed.
From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2026
The vivifying dichotomy is even announced in advance.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2025
But Gurnah avoids that misstep by gently vivifying the lives of a few African characters in all their rich humanity and even their comedy, without sentimentality or condescension.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 23, 2022
Now out from private hibernation behind a bedroom closet door in the desert and back from a public state of ruin, the vivifying struggle recommences for “Woman-Ochre.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 31, 2022
“The Ashanti fetichmen of West Africa, apparently acting on a kindred thought, make a mixture of the hearts of enemies mingled with blood and consecrated herbs, for the vivifying of the conquerors.”
From Fetichism in West Africa Forty Years' Observations of Native Customs and Superstitions by Robert Hamill Nassau
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
