vitality
Americannoun
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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:
Long before scientists understood its chemistry, doctors recognized that something in liver could restore strength, appetite and vitality to desperately ill patients.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 25, 2026
She’s less concerned with depicting every feather than offering us glimpses of vitality.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
But in the next line, his contemporary Menander asserts that though it may rob us of our vitality, time nevertheless “adds to our acuity of mind.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
The physical exam is one way a president can outwardly demonstrate his own vitality and therefore project a sense of political power.
From BBC ● May 30, 2026
Over the course of several months, she regained her speech, but she never regained her previous vitality.
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
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
He sees history as Carlyle did �a panorama of "men in buff coats and breeches, with color in their cheeks, with passions in their stomachs, and the idioms, features and vitalities of very men."
From Time Magazine Archive
His health began to fail before the end of twenty-five years of service, and, too late, he began to recruit his spent vitalities.
From Charles Lewis Cocke Founder of Hollins College by Smith, William Robert Lee
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.
