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

(en adjective)

Ignorable; of little significance or value.

* 1848, , Bantam Classics (1997), 16:

"All which details, I have no doubt, Jones , who reads this book at his Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial , twaddling, and ultra-sentimental."

Commonplace, ordinary.

* De Quincey

As a scholar, meantime, he was trivial , and incapable of labour.

Concerned with or involving trivia.

(biology) Relating to or designating the name of a species; specific as opposed to generic.

(mathematics) Of, relating to, or being the simplest possible case.

(mathematics) Self-evident.

Pertaining to the trivium.

(philosophy) Indistinguishable in case of truth or falsity.