entelechy
Americannoun
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entelechies
plural
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a realization or actuality as opposed to a potentiality.
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(in vitalist philosophy) a vital agent or force directing growth and life.
noun
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(in the philosophy of Aristotle) actuality as opposed to potentiality
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(in the system of Leibnitz) the soul or principle of perfection of an object or person; a monad or basic constituent
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something that contains or realizes a final cause, esp the vital force thought to direct the life of an organism
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of entelechy
1595–1605; < Late Latin entelechīa < Greek entelécheia, equivalent to en- en- 2 + tél ( os ) goal + éch ( ein ) to have + -eia -y 3
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.
See Examples For:
In 1899, by fertilizing sea-urchin eggs with chemicals and producing young larvae, he struck a heavy blow at the popular vitalistic theory which maintained that some intangible "vital spirit" or "entelechy" was necessary to life.
From Time Magazine Archive
This ideal of perfection varies, indeed, but only with the variations of our nature of which it is the counterpart and entelechy.
From The Sense of Beauty Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory by George Santayana
Subtle fluids play a great part in Lamarck's biology: they take the place of the soul or entelechy which the vitalists would postulate to explain organic happenings.
From Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology by E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
Shall we say with Aristotle, that the soul is the entelechy or form of an organized living body? or with Plato, that she has a life of her own?
From Phaedo by Benjamin Jowett
Digby rejects an internal agent, entelechy, or the Aristotelian formal and efficient causes.
From Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 by Charles W. Bodemer
But in order to distinguish those which have only perception from those which have also sentiment and memory, he will call the latter souls, the former monads or entelechies.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858 by Various
Whence it appears that in the smallest particle of matter there is a world of creatures, living beings, animals, entelechies, souls.
From Religion and Science From Galileo to Bergson by John Charlton Hardwick
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.
