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 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
The writer who starts with some abstract knowledge of fiction technique, and seeks to vivify rules of construction into a definite story, will accomplish very little.
From The Technique of Fiction Writing by Robert Saunders Dowst
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 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
It was deep; but the entrance to it was narrow and shoal, just spacious enough for the slow interchange of waters with the vivifying outer current.
From Hoof and Claw by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
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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.
