SUSPENDED ANIMATION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Suspended animation

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/səspˈɛndəd ˌænəmˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Animation n.

The act of animating, or giving life or spirit; the state of being animate or alive. "The animation of the same soul quickening the whole frame." "Perhaps an inanimate thing supplies me, while I am speaking, with whatever I possess of animation."

The state of being lively, brisk, or full of spirit and vigor; vivacity; spiritedness; as, he recited the story with great animation.

Suspended animation, temporary suspension of the vital functions, as in persons nearly drowned.

Synonyms: Liveliness; vivacity; spirit; buoyancy; airiness; sprightliness; promptitude; enthusiasm; ardor; earnestness; energy. See Liveliness.

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Etymology of 'Suspended animation'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Suspended animation" Quotes from Famous Books

... but sleepeth"? Not certainly that, as we regard the difference between death and sleep, his words were to be taken literally; not that she was only in a state of coma or lethargy; not even that it was a case of suspended animation as in catalepsy; for the whole narrative evidently intends us to believe that she was dead after the fashion we call death. That this was not to be dead after the fashion our Lord called death, is a blessed and ...

— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald

... wits, for the instant, in a state of suspended animation. "The view is fine, the ...

— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland

... the young women of the gentler classes, at any rate, from the abyss of sordid and cynical materialism. Hesitating to announce the rupture of the engagement, she allowed it to remain in a state of suspended animation, and as a symbolic act, ceased to wear the ring. Nancy's taunts had goaded her to a more heroic attitude. The first person to whom she showed the newly-ringed hand ...

— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... termination of the Tudor dynasty in the person of Elizabeth, who towards the close of her reign may fitly have been regarded as one already buried with her fathers, though yet living in a state of suspended animation under the influence of a deadly narcotic potion administered by the friends of Romeo—by the partisans, that is, of the Cecilian policy. The Nurse was not less evidently designed to represent the Established Church. Allusions to the marriage of the clergy ...

— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... came in, with wooden-handled whips and coarse frocks, reinforcing the bucolic flavor of the atmosphere, and middle-aged male gossips, sometimes including the squire of the neighboring law-office, gathered to exchange a question or two about the news, and then fall into that solemn state of suspended animation which the temperance bar-rooms of modern days produce in human beings, as the Grotta del Cane does in dogs in the well-known experiments related by travellers. This bar-room used to be famous for drinking and storytelling, ...

— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)