organism vs animate thing

organism and animate thing both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
organism	Yes	No	No	No
animate thing	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, animate thing is a hypernym of organism; that is, animate thing is a word with a broader meaning than organism:

organism: a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently
animate thing: a living (or once living) entity

Other hypernyms of organism include living thing, causal agency, causal agent, cause.

organism (noun)	animate thing (noun)
a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently	a living (or once living) entity
a system considered analogous in structure or function to a living body