vitalize, v.
(ˈvaɪtəlaɪz)
Also 9 -ise.
[f. vital a. + -ize.]
1. trans. To give life or animation to (the body, etc.); to endow with vital force or principle.
| 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. v. 784 By the Idol of the soul Plotinus seems to mean an airy or spirituous Body, quickned and vitalized by the soul, adhering to it after death. 1813 T. Busby Lucretius I. iii. 797 Seeds which now the body vitalise. 1846 J. Hudson in Rep. & Papers Bot. (Ray Soc.) 305 How does it happen that a cell is so vitalized as to be able to produce a phyton? 1868 Peard Water-farm. xi. 113 Every year..millions of eggs are regularly vitalised and transmitted over the Continent. |
| transf. 1858 J. H. Bennet Nutrition ii. 43 The intellectual man..who has vitalized..his brain by brain exercise. |
b. Path. To excite activity in (an ulcer, etc.).
| 1884 M. Mackenzie Dis. Throat & Nose II. 277 For the purpose..of ‘vitalizing’ the borders of an indolent ulcer within the nasal cavity. |
2. fig. To make living or active; to infuse vitality or vigour into (something); to animate.
| 1805 Foster Ess. i. iv. 50 A malignant quality appears vitalized into a powerful demon. a 1853 Robertson Lect. (1859) 124 What he wanted was to vitalize the system—to throw into it not a Jewish, but a Christian feeling. 1873 Symonds Grk. Poets v. 111 The Greek genius was endowed with the faculty of distinguishing, differentiating, vitalizing, what the Oriental nations left hazy and confused and inert. |
b. To put life into (a literary or artistic conception); to present or depict in a lifelike manner.
| 1884 Athenæum 8 March 319/3 Lord Tennyson..always allows himself room not only to vitalize his characters, but to let them grow. 1907 Ibid. 16 March 313/1 He is not an artist. He cannot vitalize his material. |
Hence
ˈvitalized ppl. a.| 1843 R. J. Graves Syst. Clin. Med. xxvii. 350 The seminal fluid of the male is a highly vitalized product. 1868 Peard Water-farm. xiii. 127 The largest quantity of this vitalised seed was sown in the rivers of France. 1874 H. R. Reynolds John Bapt. viii. 505 Those who..regard Christianity as an etherealized or vitalized morality. |