enliven
/ɛnˈlaɪvən/verb
enliven is a verb meaning “To make more lively, cheerful or interesting” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled E-N-L-I-V-E-N and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 4 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does enliven mean?
verb
- 1
archaicTo give life or spirit to; to revive or animate.
- 2
To make more lively, cheerful or interesting.
The game was much enlivened when both teams scored within five minutes of each other.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce enliven?
- UK /ɛnˈlaɪvən/
Enliven has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-enliven.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of enliven
- enlivens present, singular, he/she/it
- enlivening participle, present
- enlivened participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is enliven?
Enliven appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 58,714th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Enliven in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense to make more lively:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does enliven come from?
From life + en- -en (intensifying verbal circumfix). See liven.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).