animate
animate — adjective
1. alive — used to describe people, animals, and other beings that breathe and grow
alive — used to describe people, animals, and other beings that breathe and grow, as opposed to stones, machines, or anything without life. In some grammar studies, the word also marks nouns for living things (such as 'dog' or 'child') as a separate group from nouns for objects.
Bram sorted the museum cards into animate creatures and lifeless minerals.
animate + noun, contrasted with lifeless
In some languages, animate nouns like 'dog' take a different ending from words for stones or chairs.
grammar context: animate nouns
The forest felt animate to Hiro: birds called, leaves shook, and small feet rushed past his boots.
Children often treat their toys as if they were animate, talking to dolls during long car trips.
Doctors must distinguish animate tissue from material that has already died.
文法句型
animate + noun
be animate
用法筆記
Mostly used in formal, scientific, or grammatical writing; in everyday speech, 'living' or 'alive' is far more common. Often paired with an explicit contrast such as 'inanimate', 'lifeless', or 'plant'.
常見錯誤
animate — verb
1. to give the appearance of movement to a drawing, model, or computer image — for
to give the appearance of movement to a drawing, model, or computer image — for example, by drawing many slightly different pictures shown in fast sequence, or by moving a 3D figure inside special software.
Studio Ghibli artists still animate many scenes by hand on paper before scanning them.
animate + scenes (hand-drawn)
Omar uses a free program on his laptop to animate short cartoons about his cat.
animate + cartoons (software)
It took two weeks to animate a single dragon flying across the castle wall.
The team animated the puppet by moving its head a tiny bit between every photo.
Modern game studios animate characters using sensors strapped to real actors.
文法句型
animate + noun (character/object/scene)
用法筆記
Object is almost always something visual: a character, object, scene, logo, or short clip. The related noun 'animation' and adjective 'animated' are far more common in everyday speech than the verb itself.
常見錯誤
2. to fill a person, group, place, or activity with visible energy and feeling, so
to fill a person, group, place, or activity with visible energy and feeling, so that it becomes lively, interesting, or strongly motivated.
A surprise question from a student animated the whole lecture hall within seconds.
animate + place/event
Coach Lopez knew exactly how to animate a tired team before the second half.
animate + group of people
Her speech was animated by a deep belief that small towns deserved better trains.
Bright paper lanterns and street music animated the quiet square on Saturday night.
Reading the children's letters animated the old writer more than any prize ever had.
文法句型
animate + noun (person/place/discussion)
be animated by + noun
用法筆記
Frequently passive in the form 'be animated by + [belief, hope, anger]', describing what drives a person rather than what energises them physically. Distinguish from sense 1: this sense is about feeling and energy, not about making drawings move on screen.