Word Finder - vigour

definition

Active strength or force of body or mind; capacity for exertion, physically, intellectually, or morally; energy.

definition

Strength or force in animal or vegetable nature or action.

definition

Strength; efficacy; potency.

She had inherited vigour of body and mind.

The face is full of fire and vigour.

There is, however, real vigour and force in this fragment on the hero's death.

This decline of vigour was felt, with the customary effects of discord and bad government, in Lower Italy.

Russia, was reduced to a very low ebb, in consequence of the silkworm disease, and was only renewed with any vigour towards the end of the 'eighties.

His French style, based partly on his Latin reading, has, together with its undeniable vigour and picturesqueness, the characteristic redundance and rhetorical quality of the Burgundian school.

Such was the vigour of his.

But these beliefs are far from being confined to the uncivilized; Greek philosophers like Porphyry, no less than the fathers of the Church, held that the world was pervaded with spirits; side by side with the belief in witchcraft, we can trace through the middle ages the survival of primitive animistic views; and in our own day even these beliefs subsist in unsuspected vigour among the peasantry of the more uneducated European countries.

There was thus a steady immigration into the kingdom, to strengthen its armies and recruit with new blood the vigour of its inhabitants.

In diplomacy he proved fully the equal of all - white or black - with whom he had to deal, while he ruled with a rare combination of vigour and moderation over the nation which he had created.

Napoleon halted a whole day to let the army close up; and then attacked with his old vigour and succeeded in clearing the road, but only at the cost of leaving Ney and the rearguard to its fate.

The pruning for fruit consists in shortening back the laterals which had been nailed in at the disbudding, or summer pruning, their length depending on their individual vigour and the luxuriance of the tree.

He was high sheriff of Wiltshire during 1647, and displayed much vigour in this office.

In this way the Italians lost their military vigour, and wars were waged by despots from their cabinets, who pulled the strings of puppet captains in their pay.

These views were expressed with extraordinary vigour and incisiveness in his Letter from Sydney (1829), published while he was still in prison, but composed with such graphic power that it has been continually quoted as if written on the spot.

From the sense of having full vigour, living or lively qualities or movements, the word, got its chief current meaning of possessing rapidity or speed of movement, mental or physical.

It was designed to hold the enemy in position by the vigour of its attack, thus neutralizing his independent will power and compelling him to expend his reserves in the effort to rescue the troops engaged.

At the same time Lefebvre was ordered to press the siege of Danzig with all vigour, and on the 5th of May, after a most gallant resistance, Kalckreuth, who redeemed here his failure of Auerstadt, surrendered.

But on the American coast and in the West Indies more vigour was displayed.

From this moment may be dated the personal reign of Peter, for he now began to direct personally all branches of the administration, and governed with indefatigable vigour for twenty-seven years, during which he greatly increased the area and profoundly modified the internal condition of his country.

This was the longest siege on record, having been protracted for more than twenty years; but in 1667 it was pressed with renewed vigour by the Turks under the grand vizier Ahmed Kuprili, and the city was at length compelled to surrender (September 1669).

He associated himself closely with his greater brother, the grand pensionary, and supported him throughout his career with great ability and vigour.

The quantity obtained from each fir is very variable, depending on the vigour of the tree, and greatly lessens after it has been subjected to the operation for some years.

His literary work, too, was prosecuted with unabated vigour.

Left to itself, the native population lost physical and moral vigour.

After the Persian retreat and the reoccupation of their city the Athenians continued the war with unabated vigour.

The series of exceptional measures by which that confusion of powers was created constitutes the "Revolutionary government" in the strict sense of the word, a government which was principally in vigour during the period called "the Terror."

This outbreak was partially suppressed, but afterwards it again burst into flame with great vigour.

Brewing is an industry of exceptional vigour, Edinburgh ale being proverbially good.

The local patriotism and good taste of the citizens have regulated recreation and have also preserved in pristine vigour many peculiarly Scottish customs and pastimes.

Colenso's bold advocacy of the cause of the natives - which he maintained with vigour until his death (in 1883) - attracted almost equal attention.

Since his retirement from office Gladstone's physical vigour, up to that time unequalled, had shown signs of impairment.

One characteristic of the 14th and 15th centuries in Verona was the custom, also followed in other Lombardic cities, of setting large equestrian statues over the tombs of powerful military leaders, in some cases above the recumbent effigy of the dead man, as if to represent him in full vigour of life as well as in death.

Kenzan, adopted his style, and left a reputation as a decorator of pottery hardly less brilliant than Krins in that of lacquer; and a later follower, HOitsu (1762-1828), greatly excelled the master in delicacy and refinement, although inferior to him in vigour and invention.

The prints of the present day are cut with great skill, and the designs are excellent, though both these branches seem to lack the vigour of conception and breadth of execution of the older masters.

To Nur-ed-din he was invariably submissive, but from the vigour which he employed in adding to the fortifications of Cairo and the haste with which he retreated from an attack on Montreal (1171) and Kerak (1173) it is clear that he feared his lord's jealousy.

As to intellectual vigour, the age that produced two minds of such marked originality in different spheres as Wycliffe and Chaucer must not be despised, even if it failed to carry out all the promise of the 13th century.

On the other hand Locke was defended with vigour by Samuel Bolde, a Dorsetshire clergyman.

This impartial severity was a foretaste of Kuprili's rule, which was characterized throughout by a vigour which belied the expectations based upon his advanced years, and by a ruthlessness which in time grew to be almost blood-lust.

His father, a Genoese, who had established himself as a grocer and had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie, is said to have been his son's prototype in vigour and fluency of speech.

In the following year appeared Sigurd the Volsung, a version full of heroic vigour, movement and vitality, but somewhat too lengthy and incoherent in design to preserve the epic interest intact to the British taste.

Had he lived it may be considered as certain that the war with Napoleon would have been conducted with a vigour which was much wanting during the next few years.

It was when he was in the full tide of his popularity and success, and apparently in the full tide of his personal vigour also, that he was struck with angina pectoris.

Its vigour and originality have had scanty justice done to them owing to the difficulty of the subject-matter and the style, and the corruptions which still disfigure its text.

It is in Christian writers alone that we find the vigour of life.

The sermons of these men were largely scriptural, the cardinal evangelical truths being emphasized with reality and vigour, but with a tendency to abstract theology rather than concrete religion.

As a religious teacher, literary critic, historian and jurist, Mr Harrison took a prominent part in the life of his time, and his writings, though often violently controversial on political and social subjects, and in their judgment and historical perspective characterized by a modern Radical point of view, are those of an accomplished scholar, and of one whose wide knowledge of literature was combined with independence of thought and admirable vigour of style.

Edward's French dominions gladly reverted to their old allegiance, and Edward showed little of his former vigour in meeting this new trouble.

He was, however, an admirable tactician, a consummate knight, and he possessed extraordinary vigour and energy of temperament.

As James Otis's vigour and influence declined, Adams took a more and more prominent place in the revolutionary councils; and, contrary to the opinion of Otis and Benjamin Franklin, he declared that colonial representation in parliament was out of the question and advised against any form of compromise.