Is it possible to include a CSS class name in jQuery .animate()

With jQuery .animate(), I use to write like .animate({ 'font-size': "24px", 'color': 开发者_如何学C'#555' }, 1000 ) to animate the item as per the CSS attributes.

Is there a way in which I write a css class

.className{
    font-size : "24px";
    color : "#333";
}

and use that class to perform the .animate() function so that I don't have to write all the CSS attributes as the properties of the jquery .animate() function??

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It's not "vanilla" jQuery, but jQuery UI has animation for addClass (plus toggle, switch, and remove).