Word of the Day Archive
Tuesday August 2, 2011
entelechy \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.
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
Entelechy is built from the Greek roots telos "goal" andech "to have."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for entelechy
