Also 6–7 vitalitie. [ad. L. vītālitāt-, vītālitās (Pliny) vital force, life, f. vītālis VITAL a.: see -ITY. Cf. F. vitalité, It. vitalità, Sp. vitalidad, Pg. -idade.]
1. Vital force, power or principle as possessed or manifested by living things (cf. VITAL a. 1); the principle of life; animation.
1592. Soliman & Pers., V. iii. 65. Death … Hath depriued Erastus trunke from breathing vitalitie.
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, I. i. § 6. 6. Whether that motion, vitality and operation, were by incubation, or how else, the manner is only known to God.
1628. Feltham, Resolves, II. [I.] xxxii. 102. When a man shall exhaust his very vitalitie, for the hilling vp of fatall Gold.
1659. Pearson, Creed, iv. 432. When by an act of his will he had submitted to that death,… it was not in the power of his soul to continue any longer vitality to the body.
1700. Rowe, Amb. Step-Moth., III. ii. Let thy vitality impart New Spirits to his fainting Heart.
1812. Times, 6 March, 2/2. They perceived that vitality had been actually extinct in two of them for some time, the bodies being perfectly cold.
1844. G. Bird, Urin. Deposits (1857), 338. Those which we have now to investigate are organic substances, often possessing organization, and sometimes enjoying an independent vitality.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, i. 1. The mysteries of organized vitality remain impenetrable.
transf. 1652. French, Yorksh. Spa, ii. 13. Which sand hath in it a vitality, and in which … the water, whilest it remains, is living.
1816. Byron, Ch. Har., III. xxxiv. There is a very life in our despair, Vitality of poison.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. v. Not Mankind only, but all that Mankind does or beholds, is in continual growth, re-genesis and self-perfecting vitality.
1837. Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sci., IV. i. I. 240. All such writers … have in them no principle of philosophical vitality.
b. Of plants or vegetative organisms. Also spec. of seeds: Germinating power.
(a) 1829. T. Castle, Introd. Bot., 262. Vitality of Plants.
1842. Wordsw., Sonn., ‘A Poet!’ i. And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree Comes … from its own divine vitality.
1848. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (ed. 4), II. 150. The experiments … prove indeed conclusively that whatever the true seat of vegetable vitality may be, it is similar in its nature to that of the Animal Kingdom.
(b) 1832. Lindley, Introd. Bot., 271. The power [in seeds] of preserving their vitality is also extremely variable.
1861. Bentley, Man. Bot., 767. By retaining vitality we mean preserving their power of germinating.
2. fig. The ability or capacity on the part of something of continuing to exist or to perform its functions; power of enduring or continuing.
Merging insensibly into next.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, III. III. ix. 563. The dependance of ministerial vitality upon parliamentary majorities.
1866. R. W. Dale, Disc. Spec. Occas., viii. 275. There is terrible vitality both in truth and error.
1874. L. Stephen, Hours in Library, I. 113. The vitality of Pope’s writings, or at least of certain fragments of them, is remarkable.
3. fig. Active force or power; mental or physical vigor; activity, animation, liveliness.
Common from c. 1860.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t., xii. 110. Which shows that their minds are in a state of diminished vitality.
1860. Motley, Netherl., I. ii. 45. Such was the intense vitality of the Béarnese prince.
1869. Tozer, Highl. Turkey, I. 358. A country whose vitality is strong, and where the administrative power is active and vigorous.
1884. Manch. Exam., 9 May, 5/4. To the strong vitality which distinguishes his race, he united intellectual power of the highest order.
4. With a and pl. Something possessed of vital force. Also fig.
1851. Carlyle, Sterling, II. iii. He was full of bright speech and argument; radiant with arrowy vitalities.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., v. (1856), 36. There was no vegetation to define its course, not even the green conferva, that obscure vitality, which follows water at home.
1898. Meredith, Odes Fr. Hist., 91. Shall, then, the great vitality, France, Signal the backward step once more?
