October 20, 2009
- animate (adjective)
- \AN-uh-mut\
- What does it mean?
- 1 : having life : alive2 : animated, lively
- How do you use it?
- In Mary Shelley's classic novel Frankenstein, the narrator of the story, Dr. Frankenstein, works feverishly to create an animate being and then is terrified by what he's done.
- Are you a word wiz?
"Animate" traces back to the Latin word "anima." What do you think "anima" means?
Breathe a sigh of relief: "anima" means "breath" or "soul." Between "anima" (which also gave us the word "animal") and today's word "animate," though, is another Latin word: the verb "animare," meaning "to give life to." "Animare" gave us two words "animate." One is the adjective that is today's Buzzword. The other is the verb "animate" (the last syllable is pronounced to rhyme with "late"), which means "to give life to," and "to give spirit and vigor to," and "to make as an animated cartoon." When a cartoon is drawn and filmed in such a way that lifelike movement is produced, we say that it is "animated."
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