Belonging or relating to life, either animal or vegetable; as, vital energies; vital functions; vital actions.
2.
Contributing to life; necessary to, or supporting, life; as, vital blood. "Do the heavens afford him vital food?""And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth."
3.
Containing life; living. "Spirits that live throughout, vital in every part."
4.
Being the seat of life; being that on which life depends; mortal. "The dart flew on, and pierced a vital part."
5.
Very necessary; highly important; essential. "A competence is vital to content."
6.
Capable of living; in a state to live; viable. (R.) "Pythagoras and Hippocrates... affirm the birth of the seventh month to be vital."
Vital air, oxygen gas; so called because essential to animal life. (Obs.)
Vital capacity (Physiol.), the breathing capacity of the lungs; expressed by the number of cubic inches of air which can be forcibly exhaled after a full inspiration.
Vital force. (Biol.) See under Force. The vital forces, according to Cope, are nerve force (neurism), growth force (bathmism), and thought force (phrenism), all under the direction and control of the vital principle. Apart from the phenomena of consciousness, vital actions no longer need to be considered as of a mysterious and unfathomable character, nor vital force as anything other than a form of physical energy derived from, and convertible into, other well-known forces of nature.
Vital functions (Physiol.), those functions or actions of the body on which life is directly dependent, as the circulation of the blood, digestion, etc.
Vital principle, an immaterial force, to which the functions peculiar to living beings are ascribed.
Vital statistics, statistics respecting the duration of life, and the circumstances affecting its duration.
... McClurg: "No, he is far from the truth. Upon the vital, the essential point, he is fatally weak. Go back, erring brother—go back into the outer darkness; it is not for you to sit ... — Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson Read full book for free!
... are estimates from the Bureau of the Census based on statistics from population censuses, vital registration systems, or sample surveys pertaining to the recent past, and on assumptions ... — The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency. Read full book for free!
... with prayers in passion flowing, Pygmalion embraced the stone, Till from the frozen marble glowing, The light of feeling o'er him shone, So did I clasp with young devotion Bright Nature to a poet's heart; Till breath and warmth and vital motion Seemed through the statue ... — TITLE • AUTHOR Read full book for free!
... to infanticide and twin-murder we can speak hopefully. It will doubtless take some time to develop in them the spirit of self- sacrifice to the extent of nursing the vital spark for the mere love of God and humanity among the body of the people. The ideals of those emerging from heathenism are almost necessarily low. What the foreigner does is all very well for the foreigner, but the force of habit or something more subtle evidently excuses the ... — Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone Read full book for free!
... the girl before him with new interest. Out of her chatter he had at last garnered one important fact. His mind, trained to seize upon the vital and instantly discard the inconsequential, clutched the bit of information, and turned it over. From the first Carroll had scouted the idea that the dead man's fiancee might have been responsible for his death; but still it was a line of investigation ... — Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen Read full book for free!
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