vitality
Americannoun
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vitalities
plural
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exuberant physical strength or mental vigor.
a person of great vitality.
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capacity for survival or for the continuation of a meaningful or purposeful existence.
the vitality of an institution.
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power to live or grow.
the vitality of a language.
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vital force or principle.
noun
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physical or mental vigour, energy, etc
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the power or ability to continue in existence, live, or grow
the vitality of a movement
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a less common name for vital force
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of vitality
First recorded in 1585–95; from Latin vītālitās, from vītāli(s) vital + -tās -ty 2
Explanation
Are you full of life? Vigorous and energetic? Lucky you. You have vitality, the state of being strong and in great health. Vitality also has the general meaning of "life force," as in the mysterious power that separates the living from the dead. The phrase "vital organs" comes from vitality, meaning a person's inner organs most essential to life. Abstract things can also have vitality, as in "the vitality of the state" or the vitality of Broadway Theater."
Vocabulary lists containing vitality
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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Grade 9, List 5
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "V"
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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:
But if we don’t sustain their vitality, how will they sustain ours?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
It’s a trajectory that the immensely appealing, rollicking documentary “American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez” tracks with a vitality and purpose befitting its subject.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
Democracy is the heart of our nation’s constitutional regime, and its health underwrites the Constitution’s own vitality.
From Slate ● Jul. 20, 2026
He finds the music continues to inspire young people, not just in China but across the globe, because of its "vibrancy and vitality".
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
Strange how one person can saturate a room with vitality, with excitement.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
Though the vitalities of D.C., the commercial real estate market and local businesses are important, the editorial’s rationale for determining the balance between at-home and in-office work for federal employees was misplaced.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 21, 2023
Jonas’s protagonist looks on her world with an eye alive to both the comic excesses and the enviable vitalities of her students.
From New York Times ● May 13, 2022
He seeks to lose himself "in some aspect of the world's vitalities."
From Time Magazine Archive
As for this passion, that was creeping into all his veins, poisoning and crippling all his vitalities, he was still independent enough of it to be able to handle it with the irony it deserved.
From Sir George Tressady — Volume II by Mrs. Humphry Ward
Milton likened the world to an obscuring mist--a fog that renders dim and indistinct the great realities and vitalities of life.
From A Handful of Stars Texts That Have Moved Great Minds by Frank Boreham
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.
