conatus
Americannoun
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an effort or striving.
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a force or tendency simulating a human effort.
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(in the philosophy of Spinoza) the force in every animate creature toward the preservation of its existence.
noun
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an effort or striving of natural impulse
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(esp in the philosophy of Spinoza) the tendency of all things to persist in their own being
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of conatus
1655–65; < Latin: exertion, equivalent to cōnā ( rī ) to attempt + -tus suffix of v. action
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He ignored that inner drive which Spinoza called the conatus; or the seeds of Paracelsus or van Helmont; or the persistence over a time course of any "essence" or "form."
From Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 by Bodemer, Charles W.
The image of the Infinite in these forms is plain from their conatus and power to fill the spaces of the whole world, and even of many worlds, to infinity.
From Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom by Ager, John
And since good and evil are opposites, there is an intermediate, and in it an equilibrium, in which evil acts against good; but as it does not prevail, it stops in a conatus.
From The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love by Swedenborg, Emanuel
The first production from these earthy matters, while they were still new and in their simple state, was production of seed; the first conatus therein could not be any other.
From Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom by Ager, John
That this is so may still seem doubtful, because not illustrated by applications to sensible and perceptible things in nature; nevertheless, such is the progression of conatus, force, and motion into power.
From Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom by Ager, John
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
