élan vital

English

Etymology

An unadapted borrowing from French élan vital (“life force”, literally “vital impetus or force”), coined by Henri Bergson in 1907.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /eɪˈlɑn viˈtɑl/

Noun

élan vital (uncountable)

1. 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^[1], 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^[2], reprint edition (fiction; paperback), New York: Penguin Books, published 2007, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 714:

     Electricity! the force of the future—for everything, you know, including the élan vital itself, will soon be proven electrical in nature.

Translations

life force in the philosophy of Henri Bergson

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 生命衝動 / 生命冲动 (shēngmìng chōngdòng)

• French: élan vital m
• Polish: élan vital m

See also

• vitalism

Further reading

• élan vital on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• alleviant, vanillate

French

Etymology

By surface analysis, élan +‎ vital.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /e.lɑ̃ vi.tal/

Noun

élan vital m (uncountable)

1. élan vital

Indonesian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French élan vital (“life force”, literally “vital impetus/force”).

Noun

élan vital

1. élan vital

Further reading

• “élan vital”, in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia [Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016

Polish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French élan vital (“life force”, literally “vital impetus/force”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɛˈlã viˈtal/
• Syllabification: é‧lan vi‧tal

Noun

élan vital m inan (indeclinable)

1. élan vital

Further reading

• “élan vital”, in Polish dictionaries at PWN‎^[3] (in Polish)