in reply to What does Autovivify mean?
in thread Autovivify Module?

Vivify:to give life to; bring to life; to animate.

my $hash; print "\$hash is: ", defined $hash ? $hash : "undefined", "\n"; if ($hash->{one}){ print "'one' exists\n"; } print "\$hash is: ", defined $hash ? $hash : "undefined", "\n";

$hash is undefined, but when we use it as if it were a reference to a hash ($hash->{one}) perl automatically brings a hash reference to life and stores it in $hash. Hence, it autovivifies the hash reference for us.