1. Bring to life or give life to
   "The sculptor seemed to animate the stone"
    
2. Give new life or energy to
   "The pep talk animated the discouraged team";
   - recreate, reanimate, revive, renovate, repair, quicken, vivify, revivify
    
3. Make lively
   "The music animated the party atmosphere";
   - enliven, liven, liven up, invigorate
    
4. Heighten or intensify
   "These paintings animate the imagination";
   - inspire, invigorate, enliven, exalt
    
5. Create animated films or cartoons
   "Disney animated many classic fairy tales"; "They animated the film using stop-motion techniques"

1. Endowed with animal life as distinguished from plant life
   "we are animate beings"
    
2. Endowed with feeling and unstructured consciousness
   "the living knew themselves just animate puppets on God's stage";
   - sentient
    
3. (linguistics) belonging to the class of nouns that denote living beings
   "the word ‘dog’ is animate"

Derived forms: animated, animating, animates

See also: aliveness, animateness, liveness, sensate, sentience

Type of: alter, arouse, brace, change, energise [Brit], energize, excite, modify, perk up, shake, shake up, stimulate, stir

Antonym: inanimate, insensate

Encyclopedia: Animate