élan vital

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

• IPA^(key): /eɪˈlɑn viˈtɑl/

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.

• élan vital on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• alleviant, vanillate

By surface analysis, élan +‎ vital.

• IPA^(key): /e.lɑ̃ vi.tal/

élan vital m (uncountable)

1. élan vital

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

élan vital

1. élan vital

• “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.

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

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

élan vital m inan (indeclinable)

1. élan vital

• élan vital in Polish dictionaries at PWN