élan vital

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French élan vital (“vital impetus/force”), coined by Henri Bergson in 1907.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /eɪ.lɑn 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, 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

• vitalism

Further reading

• élan vital on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• alleviant, vanillate