animate

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

In “Grass Breathing,” Mendieta, hidden beneath squares of sod, uses her own respiration to animate the earth above.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 15, 2026

Such outcomes would not resolve the broader debates that animate these cases.

From Slate • Jan. 14, 2026

That Seu marries the feminine and the spartan in her space feels intentional — a reflection of the dualities that animate her life and work.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 20, 2025

The “richest body of historically specific written evidence” concerning fears of the animate dead in the Middle Ages comes from 12th-century England.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 21, 2025

Both sets of terms, like their Greek originals, included the whole study of nature, animate and inanimate—thus Boyle’s Physiological Essays of 1661 are about natural science as a whole.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton