v. Also 9 -ise. [f. VITAL a. + -IZE.]
1. trans. To give life or animation to (the body, etc.); to endow with vital force or principle.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. v. 784. By the Idol of the soul Plotinus seems to mean an airy or spirituous Body, quickned and vitalized by the soul, adhering to it after death.
1813. T. Busby, Lucretius, I. III. 797. Seeds which now the body vitalise.
1846. J. Hudson in Rep. & Papers Bot. (Ray Soc.), 305. How does it happen that a cell is so vitalized as to be able to produce a phyton?
1868. Peard, Water-farm., xi. 113. Every year … millions of eggs are regularly vitalised and transmitted over the Continent.
transf. 1858. J. H. Bennet, Nutrition, ii. 43. The intellectual man … who has vitalized … his brain by brain exercise.
b. Path. To excite activity in (an ulcer, etc.).
1884. M. Mackenzie, Dis. Throat & Nose, II. 277. For the purpose … of ‘vitalizing’ the borders of an indolent ulcer within the nasal cavity.
2. fig. To make living or active; to infuse vitality or vigor into (something); to animate.
1805. Foster, Ess., I. iv. 50. A malignant quality appears vitalized into a powerful demon.
a. 1853. Robertson, Lect. (1859), 124. What he wanted was to vitalize the system—to throw into it not a Jewish, but a Christian feeling.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, v. 111. The Greek genius was endowed with the faculty of distinguishing, differentiating, vitalizing, what the Oriental nations left hazy and confused and inert.
b. To put life into (a literary or artistic conception); to present or depict in a lifelike manner.
1884. Athenæum, 8 March, 319/3. Lord Tennyson … always allows himself room not only to vitalize his characters, but to let them grow. Ibid. (1907), 16 March, 313/1. He is not an artist. He cannot vitalize his material.
Hence Vitalized ppl. a.
1843. R. J. Graves, Syst. Clin. Med., xxvii. 350. The seminal fluid of the male is a highly vitalized product.
1868. Peard, Water-Farm., xiii. 127. The largest quantity of this vitalised seed was sown in the rivers of France.
1874. H. R. Reynolds, John Bapt., viii. 505. Those who … regard Christianity as an etherealized or vitalized morality.
