to lift one's spirits
- idiom
- If you are feeling sad and down in the dumps, try exercising to help lift your spirits.
- try to lift one's spirits
- help lift one's spirits
- way to lift one's spirits
Examples
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That always seems to lift your spirits!
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I'm trying to lift his spirits, but anything you could do, I'd really appreciate it.
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We need a song to lift our spirits.
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Ask him for something to lift your spirits.
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I thought it might lift your spirits.
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That ought to lift his spirits.
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How about a little song to lift our spirits?
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Well, I can think of something we can do that might lift your spirits.
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Seeing the contributions and positive messages has really lifted her spirits.
Blog text (20) -
We need a song to lift our spirits.
Synonyms
To make someone feel happier
Help someone feel happier when they are sad or sick
To feel happier after being sad or to make someone feel happier
To help someone become better off or more confident
To make people or a situation feel more cheerful
To become or make someone feel more cheerful and relaxed
Cause someone to feel happy or amused
To make someone feel happier and more hopeful
To make someone feel happier and more hopeful
Make a room or person more cheerful
To become or make someone more cheerful and confident
Make someone feel happier or more confident
To make someone feel happy
To make someone feel happier or more cheerful
Make people feel more confident and positive
Make someone feel happier and full of energy
To make someone feel happy and warm inside
To give someone a lot of happiness, often by a small kind act
To make someone feel happier when they are sad
Help someone feel happier
Help someone stop being sad and start smiling
To make someone feel more cheerful and confident
To try to make someone feel happier when they are sad
To make someone feel happier or more lively
Make someone feel less sad and more cheerful
Stay cheerful and hopeful during hard times
Antonyms
How Happy
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to make someone feel happier' is directly and predictably derived from combining 'lift' (raise) with 'one's' (possessive) and 'spirits' (mood/energy). The metaphor of raising someone's mood is common across languages and follows transparent compositional logic that a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would understand.
Etymology
Lift one's spirits comes from a simple image: to lift is to raise something up, and spirits means a person's mood. So, imagining someone's mood being raised helps you remember it means 'to make someone feel happier'.