vital [ME] Latin vita ‘life’ is the source of vital and also of vitamin [E20th]. Medieval senses of vital relate to the force or energy that is in all living things. A later meaning ‘essential to life’ evolved for anything regarded as essential, such as the vital organs, also known as the vitals from the early 17th century. Vital statistics are usually understood now as the measurements of a woman’s bust, waist, and hips. This meaning has only been around since the 1950s, and for more than a hundred years before that vital statistics were just the numbers of births, marriages, and deaths in a population. See also artery.