How to Use animal spirits in a Sentence

animal spirits

plural noun
  • Wall Street’s animal spirits are poking their heads out, but not far.
    — Rohan Goswami, semafor.com, 5 June 2025
  • But the animal spirits were up in markets and that message was ignored.
    — Brandon Kochkodin, Bloomberg.com, 7 Nov. 2020
  • Ma explains that the dance is about communing with ancient animal spirits.
    — Jeremy Eichler, BostonGlobe.com, 27 Jan. 2021
  • Shares dropped more than 13% last week after tariffs quashed animal spirits in the market.
    — Alex Harring, CNBC, 7 Apr. 2025
  • The figures are derived from the fusion of two Zapotec animal spirits, the toná and the nahual.
    — Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times, 23 Nov. 2023
  • On the surface, Stargate serves up more red meat for the animal spirits of AI.
    — R. Scott Raynovich, Forbes, 23 Jan. 2025
  • Officials blamed a lack of private-sector animal spirits for the bidding no-show.
    — The Economist, 9 June 2018
  • So perhaps companies should avoid getting too carried away by animal spirits.
    — Adrian Croft, Fortune, 27 Nov. 2019
  • The economy contracted, not just for lack of money or for animal spirits of investors, but for lack of credit.
    — John H. Cochrane, National Review, 14 Oct. 2022
  • The government then tried to revive animal spirits by sharply cutting corporate-tax rates.
    — The Economist, 1 Feb. 2020
  • Perhaps the animal spirit most crucial to forecasting is risk aversion.
    — Alan Greenspan, Foreign Affairs, 15 Oct. 2013
  • Stock churn If the SpaceX debut can keep alive animal spirits on the Street, that could bode well for the tech trade.
    — Sarah Min, CNBC, 12 June 2026
  • The state, therefore, must steer investment growth, until the private sector’s animal spirits are back.
    — R Nagaraj, Quartz India, 10 Sep. 2019
  • Those pictures helped destroy the ancient belief that animal spirits pumped through hollow chambers inside the brain.
    — Carl Zimmer, Discover Magazine, 19 Mar. 2012
  • More people sitting around watching Netflix may help rekindle some animal spirits in the stock market.
    — Peter Eavis, The Seattle Times, 16 Oct. 2018
  • None of this means that the investment markets’ performance is always driven by animal spirits.
    — Business Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 6 Feb. 2026
  • With Coinbase’s debut slated for Wednesday, the animal spirits are too busy sinking in their teeth to care.
    — David Z. Morris, Fortune, 7 Apr. 2021
  • Thaler did more than perhaps any other economists to devise a vocabulary for these animal spirits.
    — Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, 9 Oct. 2017
  • If credible, that promise should buck up animal spirits, encourage spending, and drag the economy back to health.
    — The Economist, 19 Oct. 2017
  • Japan, a pioneer with these moves, added the idea of using central-bank money to prop up the stock market, hoping to revive the animal spirits of investors.
    — Megumi Fujikawa, WSJ, 7 Mar. 2021
  • Those animal spirits influence spending and investing decisions, so if the mood gets bad, that could cause a recession.
    — Greg Rosalsky, NPR, 10 June 2025
  • Simply put, corporate welfare on such a massive scale deadened Japan’s animal spirits.
    — William Pesek, Forbes, 19 Dec. 2022
  • Assurances that protectionism is no longer a core policy could unleash animal spirits that went dormant even before the virus hit.
    — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 25 Mar. 2020
  • Controlling the rate simply becomes a calming action to quiet the market’s animal spirits.
    — Donald Devine, National Review, 11 Mar. 2021
  • There is no greater enemy to animal spirits than ESG, yet the appetite for it appears to be insatiable.
    — Andy Martin, National Review, 10 Sep. 2021
  • Bottom line This is what happens when expectations and animal spirits push a stock too far, too fast, and are then met with the reality that comes with earnings.
    — Zev Fima, CNBC, 4 June 2026
  • The new budget, the government hopes, will set the stage for the central bank to slash interest rates, with the aim of rekindling the economy’s animal spirits and boosting growth.
    — Milan Vaishnav, Foreign Affairs, 8 Mar. 2016
  • Those surging animal spirits have a big impact on the actual closing prices, since confidence that the market will stay great leads to more and more buying that spawns ever-higher prices.
    — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 17 July 2022
  • Economically, my our sense is that the end of the troubled Scholz led coalition could trigger an ‘animal spirits’ rebound in the economy.
    — Mike O'Sullivan, Forbes, 27 Feb. 2025
  • From trade wars to animal spirits, from crypto surges to European soul-searching, Day One in Davos played out like a preview of the year ahead.
    — Jackie Snow, Quartz, 21 Jan. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'animal spirits.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: