WordNet
animate thing
n. a living (or once living) entity [syn: living thing]
Usage examples of "animate thing".
The darkness pressed in on the guardsmen's torches like a sentient, animate thing.
The darkness pressed in on the guardsmens torches like a sentient, animate thing.
Tears came to her eyes even as she shivered with nameless dread, for the whirlwind was alive with a dreadful instinct, an animate thing sweeping through the dark of the underground.
They took the torch with them, and as they moved up the corridor the darkness slunk behind them like an animate thing.
Whatever the source, there it was, a hair of great length which had, in its situation, behaved with the malignance of an animate thing!