entelechy

Aug 22, 2011 12:01

http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2011/08/02.html

\en-TEL-uh-kee\ , noun;
1. A realization or actuality as opposed to a potentiality.
2. In vitalist philosophy, a vital agent or force directing growth and life.

Quotes:
It must gratify a man to evolve so perfectly concomitantly with his years, to write patriarchally when he is old, to be so complete an entelechy .
-- Kenneth Burke, Here & Elsewhere: The Collected Fiction of Kenneth Burke

The vast realm of natural entelechy is virtually unknowable, but we already have on the books more information than any poet can use.
-- Herbert A. Leibowitz, Parnassus: Twenty Years of Poetry In Review

Origin:
Entelechy is built from the Greek roots telos "goal" andech "to have."

.wotd:dictionary_wotd, e, .wotd

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