Revives

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Restores life or consciousness to someone or something that was unresponsive or inactive ; brings back interest, activity, or strength in a situation, object, or feeling that had diminished
2. Causes a person or living thing to regain awareness or vitality after being unconscious or lifeless ; renews enthusiasm, energy, or popularity in an area that was declining
3. Returns a person or organism to a conscious or living state following unconsciousness or dormancy ; reawakens energy, excitement, or usefulness in something that had become dull or unused

Etymology: The most striking thing about "revive" is how literally it was meant. Its Latin ancestor, "revivere," simply meant "to live again," and English speakers in the Middle Ages used the word for recovering from illness and returning to life after death, long before it described a flagging spirit or a stalled economy. Its first English uses were concrete and bodily. The word came into English through Anglo-Norman "reviver" and "revivre," which passed on the same sense of returning to life and of renewing something. Along the way it also took on legal meaning: in Anglo-Norman, a lapsed law or legal document could be made valid again by being "revived." Medieval English writers also used it in alchemy, where a metal could be "revived" by being restored to its original form. That technical sense shows how readily the word stretched from living bodies to inanimate matter, and from there to the figurative sense of bringing back interest, strength, or feeling that has faded.

Synonyms: restores, resuscitates, rejuvenates, revitalizes, reanimates

Antonyms: kills, destroys, diminishes, decreases, weakens