Definitions

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

  • noun The act, process, or result of imparting life, interest, spirit, motion, or activity.
  • noun The quality or condition of being alive, active, spirited, or vigorous.
  • noun The art or process of making movies with drawings, computer graphics, or photographs of static objects, including all techniques other than the continuous filming of live-action images.
  • noun Images or special effects created through animation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of animating or the state of being animated.
  • noun Liveliness; briskness; the state of being full of spirit and vigor: as, he recited the story with great animation.
  • noun The appearance of activity or life: as, the animation of a picture or statue. Attribution of life to.

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

  • noun The act of animating, or giving life or spirit; the state of being animate or alive.
  • noun The state of being lively, brisk, or full of spirit and vigor; vivacity; spiritedness.
  • noun temporary suspension of the vital functions, as in persons nearly drowned.

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

  • noun The act of animating, or giving life or spirit.
  • noun animation, in the sense of a cartoon The technique of making inanimate objects or drawings appear to move in motion pictures or computer graphics.
  • noun The state of being lively, brisk, or full of spirit and vigor; vivacity; spiritedness
  • noun The condition of being animate or alive.
  • noun linguistics conversion from the inanimate to animate grammatical category

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

  • noun the making of animated cartoons
  • noun the condition of living or the state of being alive
  • noun quality of being active or spirited or alive and vigorous
  • noun the activity of giving vitality and vigour to something
  • noun general activity and motion
  • noun the property of being able to survive and grow

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin animatio, from animare.

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