vivify
verb/ˈvɪvɪfaɪ/
Etymology Borrowed from Old French vivifier, from Late Latin vivificō.
1
To bring to life; to enliven.
- She seemed molded from fire and air, and vivified at some Voltaic pile of August thunder-clouds heaped against the sunset.1852, Herman Melville, Pierre; or The Ambiguities:
- Persephone, the life force which vivifies all in the spring time, producing the manifold harvests of earth, descends with Plouton to the under world in autumn.1893 April 30, “Society”, in Sioux City Journal, number 7349, Sioux City, Ia.: Perkins Bros. Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, part 2, page 9, column 6:
1 more example
- [T]he sculptor lifted it [a round block of stone], turned it hither and thither in his hands, brushed off the clinging soil, and finally placed it on the slender neck of the newly discovered statue. The effect was magical. It immediately lighted up and vivified the whole figure, endowing it with personality, soul, and intelligence.1860, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “A Walk on the Campagna”, in The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni. […], volume II, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 237:
2
To impart vitality to.
- Derived terms
- autovivify