Meanings
plural vitalisms
- countableuncountableThe doctrine that life involves some immaterial "vital force", and cannot be explained scientifically.
It seems to me that in vitalism, there are people who are anti-Christian, like Bronze Age Pervert, like the Nazis.
2025 May 1, Ross Douthat, “The New Culture of the Right: Vital, Masculine and Intentionally Offensive”, in The New York Times, →ISSN1 more example
Theories and philosophies of vitalism are concerned with the distinction between life and non-life in some form. Given this emphasis, vitalism always has political stakes: where the boundary between life and non-life is drawn is, as theorists of biopolitics have shown, a supremely political matter […] Historically, vitalism has been associated with conservatism and fascism in ways that are sometimes genealogically defensible, sometimes only with difficulty or not at all.
2023, Cat Moir, “What Is Living and What Is Dead In Political Vitalism?”, in Christopher Donohue, Charles T. Wolfe, editors, Vitalism and Its Legacy in Twentieth Century Life Sciences and Philosophy, Springer Nature, →ISBN, page 258
Origin
Translations
Catalan vitalisme
- vitalismedoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Czech vitalismus
- vitalismusdoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Danish vitalisme
- vitalismedoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Dutch vitalisme
- vitalismedoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Esperanto vitalismo
- vitalismodoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Finnish vitalismi
- vitalismidoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
French vitalisme
- vitalismedoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
German Vitalismus
- Vitalismusdoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Greek βιταλισμός
- βιταλισμός (vitalismós)doctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Italian vitalismo
- vitalismodoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Norwegian Bokmål vitalisme
- vitalismedoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Polish witalizm
- witalizmdoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Portuguese vitalismo
- vitalismodoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Russian витали́зм
- витали́зм (vitalízm)doctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Spanish vitalismo
- vitalismodoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Swedish vitalism
- vitalismdoctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Ukrainian віталі́зм
- віталі́зм (vitalízm)doctrine that life involves a "vital force"
Cite this entry
vitalism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vitalism
“vitalism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vitalism. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “vitalism,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vitalism.
Source: vitalism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.