Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To give or bring life to; animate.
  • transitive verb To make more lively, intense, or striking; enliven.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make to be living; endue with life; animate; enliven; inspire as if with life.
  • To impart life or animation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To endue with life; to make to be living; to quicken; to animate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To bring to life
  • verb To impart vitality

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb give new life or energy to
  • verb make more striking or animated

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English vivifien, from Old French vivifier, from Late Latin vīvificāre : Latin vīvus, alive; see gwei- in Indo-European roots + Latin -ficāre, -fy.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin vivus (alive), through late Latin vivificare and French vivifier

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Examples

Comments

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  • Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota,

    Chants going forth from the centre from Kansas, and thence

    equidistant,

    Shooting in pulses of fire ceaseless to vivify all.

    Whitman, "Starting from Paumanok"

    January 9, 2008

  • Got this one 3 times today via 'random'. Weird, huh?

    October 24, 2008

  • And with the will came the Act and so at last

    He vivified naked form devoid of reason.

    —Lawrence Durrell, 'Poemandres'

    Listed as a discovery because I don't think I've ever seen the plain form 'vivify', as opposed to the familiar 'revivify'.

    March 17, 2009

  • See vivifies examples

    March 25, 2012