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, 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.

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