adjective full of life, action, or spirit; lively; vigorous: an animated debate on the death penalty. made or equipped to move or give the appearance of moving in an animallike fashion: animated puppets. containing representations of animals or mechanical objects that appear to move as real ones do: an animated window display.

The English adjective animate meaning "alive" comes from the Latin verb animare meaning "to give life to," which in turn came from anima. A characteristic of animals is their ability to move about. When a cartoon is drawn and filmed in such a way that lifelike movement is produced, we say it is animated.