anima means the soul or animating principle of a living thing, especially as contrasted with the animus. It carries an Arena rating of 1798, earned across 13 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, anima ranks #679 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #795 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #921 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #1,956 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words.
anima is pronounced /ˈænɪmə/.
Why “anima” is a great word
The unconscious, archetypal feminine aspect of a man's personality, representing the soul and inner self. From Latin *anima* ("air, breath, vital principle, soul"), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁- ("to breathe, blow"). Unlike the "animus" (the complementary masculine principle within a woman) or the "persona" (the conscious social mask tailored for the world), the anima is the deep, compensatory counter-current within. She is the elusive figure in a dream, the irrational tenderness for a passing stranger, and the quiet, insistent voice that whispers *this is not all you are*—soul not as possession, but as the breath one does not know one is drawing.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin anima (“a current of air, wind, air, breath, the vital principle, life, soul”), sometimes equivalent to animus (“mind”), both from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁- (“to breathe, blow”); see animus. Cognate with Ancient Greek ἄνεμος (ánemos, “wind”), Old English anda (“anger, envy, zeal”). More at onde.
noun
- The soul or animating principle of a living thing, especially as contrasted with the animus.
- The inner self (not the external persona) of a person that is in touch with the unconscious as opposed to the persona.e.g.“In the Jungian model of the psyche, the male has an internalized female counterpart, the anima; while the female has an internalized masculine counterpart, the animus.” — 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 31:
- The unconscious feminine aspect of a person.e.g.“The projection-making factor is the anima, or rather the unconscious as represented by the anima.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- animus 69% match — The basic impulses and instincts which govern one's actions. vs anima →
- animateness 66% match — The state or condition of being animate. vs anima →
- animacy 65% match — The state of being animate (alive or supernaturally seeming alive). vs anima →
- animation 65% match — The act of animating, or giving life or spirit. vs anima →
- animastic 64% match — Pertaining to or possessing an animate nonphysical nature; having a mental or spiritual nature. vs anima →
- pneuma 64% match — A neume. vs anima →
- animatism 63% match — The belief that everything is pervaded by a life force giving each inanimate object a consciousness or personality, but not a soul as in animism. vs anima →
- animat 63% match — An artificial animal. vs anima →