invigorate

Etymology

Its immediate source is disputed.^[2][3][4] The Oxford dictionaries take it as borrowed from Medieval Latin invigōrō (“to make strong”),^[5][6] the OED assuming a Latin type that may exist only in modern Latin, and comparing French envigorer of the 15th–16th centuries.^[2] That verb is formed from in- (“towards”) and vigōrō (“to make strong, animate”),^[6][5][2] from vigor (“liveliness, force”),^[7][8] from vigeō (“to be lively, flourish”),^[7][8][9] which Etymonline and Ayto trace to Proto-Indo-European *weg- (“to be strong, be lively”).^[7][8] Other dictionaries derive it within English.^[10][4] The American Heritage Dictionary and Barnhart suggest the earlier verb invigor, first as envigor in 1611, from the French verb, itself from Old French envigourer, with the suffix -ate.^[10][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com prefer the same prefix with the obsolete verb vigorate,^[4][11] recorded from 1613 to 1782,^[2] and Etymonline and Collins form it from the prefix and the noun directly.^[7][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To fill with vigour or strength: 1646, in Sir T. Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica;^[2][4][3] Etymonline likewise has the 1640s.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The earlier verb was envigor, of the 1610s.^[7][3] Johnson (1755) glossed it "to endue with vigour; to strengthen; to animate; to enforce", and his quotations show it applied to the body in Browne, to laws in Addison and to virtues in Atterbury.^[13] A rare intransitive use, "to become vigorous", appears in S. Fielding in 1759,^[2] and a rare adjective, "invigorated", in 1720.^[2][5] The Shorter Oxford notes that the verb is often met as the participial adjective invigorating.^[5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged now separates giving energy to a person or body from stimulating an activity or system, such as the imagination or an economy.^[4]

Timeline

• 1646 – transitive verb, to fill with vigour or life.^[2][4][3]
• 1720 – adjective, filled with vigour (rare).^[2][5]
• 1759 – intransitive verb, to become vigorous (rare).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To give energy, strength or vitality to; to animate: A cold swim invigorated the whole team.^[12][4][10]
2. To make something more active and lively; to stimulate: a scheme to invigorate the town's flagging trade.^[4]

Adjective

1. (rare) Filled with vigour; invigorated.^[2][5]

Word family

• invigoratingly
• invigoration
• invigorator
• invigorative
• invigoratively
• reinvigorate

Related words

• vigor
• vigorous
• vigil
• wake
• watch

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.