Etymologically
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vital

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈvaɪ.təl/, US /ˈvaɪ.t̬əl/[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English vital, borrowed from Old French vital and directly from Latin vītālis (“of life”),[2][3][4] from vīta (“life”), related to vīvere “to live”,[2][3][5] from Proto-Indo-European *gwei- (“to live”).[2] It is related to vitamin and quick.[6][3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of or relating to the animating force of living things: about 1385, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.[3][7][2]

Semantic evolution

Medieval senses related to the force or energy present in all living things,[6] as in vital spirits, from about 1450.[7] Living, containing life, is from the mid-15th century.[2] Essential to life, of organs, is from 1482,[7][3] which led, by 1619, to the general sense “necessary, very important”.[3][2] The noun vitals, the vital organs, is from before 1610.[3][6] Vital air, oxygen in old chemistry, is from 1791.[7] Vital statistics, records of births, marriages and deaths, is from 1837, and the colloquial sense, a woman's bust, waist and hip measurements, from 1952.[2][6] Vitality is from 1592.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 1385 – of the life force.[3]
  • 1482 – essential to life.[7]
  • 1592 – vitality.[3]
  • 1619 – very important.[3]
  • 1837 – vital statistics.[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Very important or necessary; essential.
  2. Needed to stay alive: the vital organs.
  3. Full of life and energy; lively.
  4. Of or relating to life.

Word family

  • vitally
  • vitalness
  • intravital
  • nonvital
  • revitalise
  • revitalize
  • supravital
  • revive
  • survive
  • viable
  • vitality
  • vitals
  • vivid
  • vitamin

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press