élan vital
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English
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French élan vital (literally “vital impetus/force”), coined by Henri Bergson in 1907.
Pronunciation
Noun
- The life force or vital principle posited in the philosophy of Henri Bergson; any mysterious or creative vital principle.
- 1920 April, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 5, in This Side of Paradise, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book II (The Education of a Personage), page 285:
- Progress was a labyrinth. . . people plunging blindly in and then rushing wildly back, shouting that they had found it. . . the invisible king—the élan vital—the principle of evolution. . .
- 1921, Aldous Huxley, chapter 5, in Crome Yellow, London: Chatto & Windus, page 40:
- She turned astonished blue eyes towards Mr. Wimbush, then let them fall on to the seething mass of élan vital that fermented in the sty.
- 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 803:
- Electricity! the force of the future—for everything, you know, including the élan vital itself, will soon be proven electrical in nature.
See also
Anagrams
Indonesian
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French élan vital (“life force”, literally “vital impetus/force”).
Noun
Further reading
- “élan vital” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.