vivify

American  

[viv-uh-fahy] / ˈvɪv əˌfaɪ /

verb (used with object)

vivified, vivifying

1. to give life to; animate; quicken.

2. to enliven; brighten; sharpen.

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vivify British  

/ ˈvɪvɪˌfaɪ /

verb

1. to bring to life; animate

2. to make more vivid or striking

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Other Word Forms

• vivification
  noun
• vivifier
  noun
• unvivified
  adjective

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

vivify vivified vivifying

The McBurneys here did much to vivify the drama, sometimes vaguely, sometimes, as in a Los Angeles film scene, overly specific.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 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

And now it was his turn to describe, to vivify the scene of action.

From The German Classics, v. 20 Masterpieces of German Literature by Various

Elizabeth II’s 1953 coronation ceremony vivified for war-fatigued Britain the collective sentiments that make a community.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 8, 2022

“But no film in which Cate Blanchett head-butts a vivified jack-o’-lantern could be entirely without merit.”

From New York Times ● Oct. 4, 2019

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

Assiduously and silently meditated, unceasingly purified by reflection and vivified by sentiment, it warms genius and inspires it with the irresistible need of seeing it realized and living.

From Lectures on the true, the beautiful and the good by Victor Cousin

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 city’s vivifying artistic production was put on the map.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 1, 2025

The pattern’s strict rectilinear geometry creates a stark contrast with organic facial features, vivifying the otherworldly human form.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 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

“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