animation

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act, process, or result of imparting life, interest, spirit, motion, or activity.
• noun The quality or condition of being alive, active, spirited, or vigorous.
• noun The art or process of making movies with drawings, computer graphics, or photographs of static objects, including all techniques other than the continuous filming of live-action images.
• noun Images or special effects created through animation.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act of animating or the state of being animated.
• noun Liveliness; briskness; the state of being full of spirit and vigor: as, he recited the story with great animation.
• noun The appearance of activity or life: as, the animation of a picture or statue. Attribution of life to.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act of animating, or giving life or spirit; the state of being animate or alive.
• noun The state of being lively, brisk, or full of spirit and vigor; vivacity; spiritedness.
• noun temporary suspension of the vital functions, as in persons nearly drowned.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The act of animating, or giving life or spirit.
• noun animation, in the sense of a cartoon The technique of making inanimate objects or drawings appear to move in motion pictures or computer graphics.
• noun The state of being lively, brisk, or full of spirit and vigor; vivacity; spiritedness
• noun The condition of being animate or alive.
• noun linguistics conversion from the inanimate to animate grammatical category

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the making of animated cartoons
• noun the condition of living or the state of being alive
• noun quality of being active or spirited or alive and vigorous
• noun the activity of giving vitality and vigour to something
• noun general activity and motion
• noun the property of being able to survive and grow