All 3 Uses

animate
in
City of Lost Souls
(Edited)

"It's true," said Isabelle, a little animation entering into her voice.
Chpt 1

animation = excitement
Really looked like, alive and moving and animated.
Chpt 3 *

animated = lively
As far as I know, inanimate objects can accidentally kill you.
Chpt 13 *

inanimate = not living

standard prefix: The prefix "in-" in inanimate means not and reverses the meaning of animate. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.

Definitions:

(1) (animate as in: animated by her strong belief)
inspire, make more lively, or bring to life
(2) (animate as in: an animated cartoon)
make a moving cartoon (a film technique that uses a set of gradually changing pictures to simulate movement when played in series)
(3) (animate as in: animate v. inanimate)
alive; or (more rarely) an animal--not a plant; or (more rarely still) the degree to which as an animal feels and thinks

This sense of animate is typically contrasted with inanimate. The adjective animate describes something as being alive--such as a dog. The adjective inanimate describes something as not being alive--such as a rock.

Note that this sense of animate is pronounced differently than other senses. Most senses whether used as a noun or an adjective) rhyme with mate, but this sense rhymes more closely with mutt".
(4) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
Much more rarely, Linguists use the form animacy to describe whether (or the degree to which) a noun feels and thinks. It impacts grammar. For example, in English, "She moved" v. "It moved."