élan vital
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 is proud of his erudition, using French phrases like elan vital, but he sometimes tosses out strange neologisms, like "braggadocious."
From Time Magazine Archive
In this connexion, has it been remarked that while an Englishman gave to the French the term "struggle for life," a Frenchman has given to us the term elan vital?
From Bergson and His Philosophy by Gunn, John Alexander
She turned astonished blue eyes towards Mr. Wimbush, then let them fall onto the seething mass of elan vital that fermented in the sty.
From Crome Yellow by Huxley, Aldous
The New Morality Life is a process of expansion, of the unfoldment of new powers; driven by that inner impulse which the philosophers of Pragmatism call the elan vital.
From The Profits of Religion by Sinclair, Upton
But we cannot thus account for the elan vital itself.
From Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge by Philip, Alexander
