come to life

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come to life (third-person singular simple present comes to life, present participle coming to life, simple past came to life, past participle come to life)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic) to become alive, to be given life; to be brought into existence
   • 1999, Lee Smolin, New York Times, We All Came From Mars‎:

     We want to know exactly how the first cells came to life on earth.

2. (intransitive, idiomatic) to appear as if alive

   The CGI-generated characters came to life through an incredible display of a cutting-edge 3D technology.

3. (intransitive, idiomatic) to start to become energetic.
   • 2011 October 29, Neil Johnston, “Norwich 3 - 3 Blackburn”, in BBC Sport‎:

     It was only after Yakubu sliced another chance into the side netting, a bad miss by the former Everton striker, that Norwich came to life.