vitality

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin vītālitās (“vital force, life”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} a word recorded in Pliny,^[2] formed from vītālis (“of life”) with -itās,^[4][2] the source of vital.^[3][2] Vītālis is from vīta (“life”), related to vīvō (“to live”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷei- (“to live”).^[3][7] The OED compares French vitalité, Italian vitalità and Spanish vitalidad.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The vital force or principle of life in living things: probably 1592, in The Tragedy of Solyman and Perseda.^[2][4] Etymonline gives the sense "the exhibiting of the capacities of animation or life" from the 1590s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it as the power of subsisting in life, quoting Raleigh's History of the World.^[8] In the 19th century it was applied to plants and to the germinating power of seeds (1829),^[2] and used figuratively for the capacity of something to go on existing or working, from 1848 in the OED and by 1844 in Etymonline.^[2][3] The now usual sense of mental or physical vigour, liveliness, is recorded from 1858, in Oliver Wendell Holmes.^[2][3] Carlyle (1851) used a vitality for something possessed of vital force.^[2]

Timeline

• 1592 – vital force, the principle of life.^[2][4]
• 1755 – Johnson: the power of subsisting in life.^[8]
• 1829 – of plants; the germinating power of seeds.^[2]
• 1844 – capacity for enduring and performing.^[3]
• 1848 – the capacity to go on existing or functioning.^[2]
• 1858 – mental or physical vigour, liveliness.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Physical or mental vigour; energy and liveliness: The young coach brought new vitality to the club.^[9][4][2]
2. The power to go on existing, living or growing; the capacity to survive or endure: the vitality of an old tradition.^[9][4][2]
3. The quality that distinguishes the living from the non-living; the vital force or principle of life.^[4][9][2]
4. The power of a seed to germinate.^[4][2]

Related words

• revive
• survive
• viable
• vital
• vivid
• vitalism

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins