- vitalize
- vitalize, energize, activate can all mean to arouse to activity, animation, or life something inactive, inert, latent, or arrested (as in development).Vitalize may stress the arousal of something more or less inert or lifeless to vital activity, often by communicating an impetus or force, or an imparting of significance or interest to (something) or a making one aware of its inherent significance or interest; the term usually suggests a vigor, freshness, or health in the effect{
a force which can vitalize or destroy men— Cunnington
}{a power of description that vitalizes his words— Christian Science Monitor
}{a resurgent democracy vitalized . . . through a mobilization of the total resources of the community— Melby
}Energize implies an arousing to activity by an imparting of strength or a source of power that increases capacity for activity or an acting with a vitality presumably induced by such power{oats are, without doubt, the best energizing food for horses— Wynmalen
}{storage batteries energize railroad block signal circuits— Orsino & Lynes
}{it is Christianity which energized the special genius that made the West what it is— Cogley
}{when a man and woman are successfully in love, their whole activity is energized and victorious. They walk better . . . they think more clearly— Lippmann
}Activate implies a passing from an inactive to an active state; though the process involved can be equivalent to that implied by energize the stress is quite different and is consistently upon an arousing to activity by the influence of an external agent{breaks contact with the photoelectric cell and activates an alarm— Hynd
}{the report has done much to crystallize and activate official and private opinion— Walter White
}{vitamin D activated by sunlight
}{political and legal hacks whose function it was to supply the docile social machinery for cleverer men to activate and guide— Mattingly
}Antonyms: atrophy
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
