élan

noun

ā-ˈlän ā-ˈläⁿ

: vigorous spirit or enthusiasm

Did you know?

Once upon a time, English speakers did not have élan (the word, that is; we have always had the potential for vigorous spirit). We had, however, the verb elance, meaning "to throw," that was used for the launching of darts, javelins, and similar weaponry. Elance is derived from the Middle French (s')eslancer, meaning "to rush or dash" (that is, "to hurl oneself forth"). Elance enjoyed only a short flight in English, largely falling into disuse by the mid-1800s, around which time English speakers picked up élan, another French word that traces back, via the Middle French noun eslan ("dash, rush"), to (s')eslancer. We copied élan in form from the French, but we dispensed with the French sense of a literal "rush" or "dash," retaining the sense of enthusiastic animation that we sometimes characterize as dash.

Examples of élan in a Sentence

The dancer performed with great élan.

Recent Examples on the Web

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Trending on Billboard What comes next is a clinic in classic Jackson, with the singer popping, locking and skittering across the club’s floor while executing some of his signature spins and fancy footwork while breaking hearts and deftly dispatching would-be assassins with his signature elan. —Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 30 Oct. 2024 The Orioles have adeptly selected their times to be aggressive on the bases After more than three hours of tense back and forth Wednesday night in the Bronx, the Orioles finished the Yankees not with their trademark power but with base running elan. —Childs Walker, Baltimore Sun, 21 June 2024