vital

adjective

1. 1

   Relating to or characteristic of life.

   vital energies; vital functions; vital actions

   But open converse is there none, ⁠So much the vital spirits sink ⁠To see the vacant chair, and think, ‘How good! how kind! and he is gone.’

2. 2

   Necessary to the continuation of life; being the seat of life; being that on which life depends.

   The brain is a vital organ.

   And doen the heavens afford him vitall food?

   We have argued that organizatory agents are operative in all vital processes, processes that overstep the limits of the physicochemical; […]

   Challenger breathed two or three times with enormous gulps, his lungs roaring as he drew in the vital gas.

3. 3

   Invigorating or life-giving.

4. 4

   Necessary to continued existence.

   The transition to farming was vital for the creation of civilisation.

5. 5

   Relating to the recording of life events.

   Birth, marriage and death certificates are vital records.

6. 6

   Very important.

   It is vital that you don't forget to do your homework.

   David Cameron insists that his latest communications data bill is “vital to counter terrorism”. Yet terror is mayhem. It is no threat to freedom. That threat is from counter-terror, from ministers capitulating to securocrats.

   Vocabulary is a vital component of educational success in both first and second language contexts.

7. 7

   Containing life; living.

   spirits that live throughout, vital in every part

   I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.

   The dart […]pierced a vital part.

8. 8

   Lively, having vitality

   Montreal is a charming vital city with a large lesbian and gay population which clusters around a neighborhood not far from the center of town.

9. 9

   Capable of living; in a state to live; viable.

   Pythagoras and Hippocrates […] affirming the birth of the seventh month to be vital.

Forms

comparative

more vital

superlative

most vital