vigour

• vigor (US)
• vygour (obsolete)

From Middle English vigour, from Old French vigour, from vigor, from Latin vigor, from vigeō (“thrive, flourish”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵ- (“to be lively”).

Related to vigil, vegetable, vajra, and waker.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈvɪɡə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈvɪɡɚ/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɪɡə(ɹ)

vigour (countable and uncountable, plural vigours)

1. Active strength or force of body or mind; capacity for exertion, physically, intellectually, or morally; energy.
   • 1717, John Dryden (tr.), Metamorphoses By Ovid‎, Book the Twelfth:

     The vigour of this arm was never vain

2. (biology) Strength or force in animal or vegetable nature or action.

   A plant grows with vigour.

3. Strength; efficacy; potency.
   • 1667, John Milton, “(please specify the book number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     But in the fruithful earth: there first receiv'd / His beams, unactive else, their vigour find.

Vigour and its derivatives commonly imply active strength, or the power of action and exertion, in distinction from passive strength, or strength to endure.

• envigorate
• vigorous
• hybrid vigor/hybrid vigour
• vim and vigour

• vegetable
• vigil

vigour oblique singular, m (oblique plural vigours, nominative singular vigours, nominative plural vigour)

1. Alternative form of vigur