Adjective

(en adjective)

Relating to, or characteristic of life.

vital''' energies; '''vital''' functions; '''vital actions

Necessary to the continuation of life; being the seat of life; being that on which life depends.

The brain is a vital organ.

* Spenser

Do the heavens afford him vital food?

Invigorating or life-giving.

Necessary to continued existence.

The transition to farming was vital for the creation of civilisation.

Relating to the recording of life events.

Birth, marriage and death certificates are vital records.

Very important.

It is vital that you don't forget to do your homework.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-12-14

, author=Simon Jenkins, authorlink=Simon Jenkins , title=We mustn't overreact to North Korea boys' toys , volume=188, issue=2, page=23 , date=2012-12-21 , magazine= citation , passage=David Cameron insists that his latest communications data bill is “vital to counter terrorism”. Yet terror is mayhem. It is no threat to freedom. That threat is from counter-terror, from ministers capitulating to securocrats.}}

Containing life; living.

* Milton

spirits that live throughout, vital in every part

* Alexander Pope

The dart flew on, and pierced a vital part.

Capable of living; in a state to live; viable.

* Sir Thomas Browne

Pythagoras and Hippocrates affirm the birth of the seventh month to be vital .

Adjective

(er)

Not normal; odd, unusual, surprising, out of the ordinary.

He thought it strange that his girlfriend wore shorts in the winter.

* Milton

Sated at length, erelong I might perceive / Strange alteration in me.

Unfamiliar, not yet part of one's experience.

I moved to a strange town when I was ten.

* Shakespeare

Here is the hand and seal of the duke; you know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is not strange to you.

* 1955 , edition, ISBN 0553249592, pages 48–49:

She's probably sitting there hoping a couple of strange detectives will drop in.

(physics) Having the quantum mechanical property of strangeness.

* 2004 Frank Close, Particle Physics: A Very Short Introduction , Oxford, page 93:

A strange quark is electrically charged, carrying an amount -1/3, as does the down quark.

(obsolete) Belonging to another country; foreign.

* Shakespeare

one of the strange queen's lords

* Ascham

I do not contemn the knowledge of strange and divers tongues.

(obsolete) Reserved; distant in deportment.

* Shakespeare

She may be strange and shy at first, but will soon learn to love thee.

(Nathaniel Hawthorne)

(obsolete) Backward; slow.

* Beaumont and Fletcher

Who, loving the effect, would not be strange / In favouring the cause.

(obsolete) Not familiar; unaccustomed; inexperienced.

* Shakespeare

In thy fortunes am unlearned and strange .