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

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Etymology

Origin of vivify

First recorded in 1535–45; late Middle English from Middle French vivifier from Late Latin vīvificāre ). See vivi-, -fy ( def. )

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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

Thus, says Pattison, “the University took its full share of national passion, prejudice and religious sentiment, but was wholly destitute of any power to vivify, to correct, to instruct, or to enlighten.”

From Science and Medieval Thought The Harveian Oration Delivered Before the Royal College of Physicians, October 18, 1900 by Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt

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

But he vivified the material supplied by his memory.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 9 "Dagupan" to "David" by Various

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 shrewd, vivifying juxtaposition pits crude, primal, static stone, its huge weight pressing the ground beneath your feet, against sleek, industrially elegant windmills spinning overhead to catch the invisible airstream and generate similarly imperceptible energy.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 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

In many cases these dissections are clear-eyed and vivifying, arriving at a deeper set of emotional meanings.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2020

And that variety of vivifying objects; that rich, yet so elegant scenery, of airy gaiety, and ideal felicity, is palpably a representation of fairy land itself!

From The Wanderer (Volume 5 of 5) or, Female Difficulties by Fanny Burney

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