different between vivacity vs sapless

English

Etymology

vivac(ious) +? -ity, borrowed from Latin v?v?cit?s.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v??væs?ti/
• Hyphenation: vi?va?ci?ty

Noun

vivacity (countable and uncountable, plural vivacities)

1. The quality or state of being vivacious.
   • 1612, Francis Bacon, Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, “Of Youth and Age,”^[1]

     But reposed natures may do well in youth. […] On the other side, heat and vivacity in age, is an excellent composition for business.

   • 1738, David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part I, Section III. Of the Ideas of the Memory and the Imagination,^[2]

     We find by experience, that when any impression has been present with the mind, it again makes its appearance there as an idea; and this it may do after two different ways: either when in its new appearance it retains a considerable degree of its first vivacity, and is somewhat intermediate betwixt an impression and an idea: or when it entirely loses that vivacity, and is a perfect idea.

   • 1766, Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield, Chapter 1,^[3]

     The one entertained me with her vivacity when I was gay, the other with her sense when I was serious.

   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 2,^[4]

     In the name of truth and common sense, why should not one woman acknowledge that she can take more exercise than another? or, in other words, that she has a sound constitution; and why to damp innocent vivacity, is she darkly to be told, that men will draw conclusions which she little thinks of?

   • 1819, Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor, Chapter 5,^[5]

     Some secret sorrow, or the brooding spirit of some moody passion, had quenched the light and ingenuous vivacity of youth in a countenance singularly fitted to display both […]

   • 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, Chapter 2,^[6]

     […] an extraordinary observer might have seen that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, our discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child […]

Synonyms

• liveliness
• vivaciousness

Translations

Anagrams

• vacivity

English

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?sæpl?s/

Etymology

sap +? -less

Adjective

sapless (comparative more sapless, superlative most sapless)

1. (of a plant) Lacking in sap.
   • 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind,” III, in Prometheus Unbound, with Other Poems, London: C. & J. Ollier, pp. 191-192,^[1]

     […] Thou

     For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

     Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

     The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

     The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

     Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,

     And tremble to despoil themselves: O, hear!

   • 1861, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Venner, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, Volume I, Chapter 13, p. 234,^[2]

     Below, all their earthward-looking branches are sapless and shattered, splintered by the weight of many winters’ snows; above, they are still green and full of life, but their summits overtop all the deciduous trees around them, and in their companionship with heaven they are alone.

2. (figuratively, of a person etc.) Lacking vivacity.
   • 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 5,^[3]

     O young John Talbot! I did send for thee

     To tutor thee in stratagems of war,

     That Talbot’s name might be in thee revived

     When sapless age and weak unable limbs

     Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.

   • 1633, George Herbert, “Nature” in The Temple, 5th edition, Cambridge University, 1638,^[4]

     O smooth my rugged heart, and there

     Engrave thy rev’rend Law and fear:

     Or make a new one, since the old

     Is saplesse grown,

     And a much fitter stone

     To hide my dust, then thee to hold.

Anagrams

• passels