life

Alternative forms

• lyfe (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English lyf, from Old English līf, from Proto-West Germanic *līb, from Proto-Germanic *lībą (“life, body”), from *lībaną (“to remain, stay, be left”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“to stick, glue”). Cognate with Scots life, leif (“life”), North Frisian liff (“life, limb, person, livelihood”), West Frisian liif (“belly, abdomen”), Dutch lijf (“body”), Low German lif (“body; life, life-force; waist”), German Leib (“body; womb”) and Leben (“life”), Danish, Norwegian and Swedish liv (“life; waist”), Icelandic líf (“life”). Related to belive.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /laɪf/, enPR: līf
• (MLE, Jamaica) IPA^(key): /læ̙ːf/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: life
• Rhymes: -aɪf

Noun

life (usually uncountable, plural lives)

1. (uncountable) The state of organisms preceding their death, characterized by biological processes such as metabolism and reproduction and distinguishing them from inanimate objects; the state of being alive and living.

   Having experienced both, the vampire decided that he preferred (un)death to life.  He gave up on life.

   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene vii:

     My bloodleſſe bodie waxeth chill and colde,
     And with my blood my life ſlides through my wound,
     My ſoule begins to take her flight to hell,
     And ſummones all my ſences to depart: […]

   1. (biology) The status possessed by any of a number of entities, including animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and sometimes viruses, which have the properties of replication and metabolism.
2. The animating principle or force that keeps an inorganic thing or concept metaphorically alive (dynamic, relevant, etc) and makes it a "living document", "living constitution", etc.
   • 1881, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., The Common Law:

     The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.

3. Lifeforms, generally or collectively.

   It's life, but not as we know it.   She discovered plant life on the planet.   The rover discovered signs of life on the alien world.

4. (countable) A living individual; the fact of a particular individual being alive. (Chiefly when indicating individuals were lost (died) or saved.)

   Many lives were lost during the war.   Her quick thinking saved many dogs' lives.

   • 2014 June 14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891:

     One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination.

5. Existence.

   Man's life on this planet has been marked by continual conflict.   the eternal life of the soul

   • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VI, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     " […] I realize as never before how cheap and valueless a thing is life. Life seems a joke, a cruel, grim joke. You are a laughable incident or a terrifying one as you happen to be less powerful or more powerful than some other form of life which crosses your path; but as a rule you are of no moment whatsoever to anything but yourself. You are a comic little figure, hopping from the cradle to the grave. Yes, that is our trouble—we take ourselves too seriously; but Caprona should be a sure cure for that." She paused and laughed.

   • 2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist‎, volume 407, number 8838, page 11:

     But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.

   • 1994, Robert Ferro, Violet Quill:

     Most things in life, including life itself, seemed to have articulated sections, discrete and separate and straightforward.

   1. A worthwhile existence.

      He gets up early in the morning, works all day long — even on weekends — and hardly sees his family. That's no life!  His life was ruined by drugs.

   2. A particular aspect of existence.

      He struggled to balance his family life, social life and work life.   sex life, political life

   3. (informal) Social life.

      Get a life.

      • 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC, page 01:

        It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.

   4. Something which is inherently part of a person's existence, such as job, family, a loved one, etc.

      She's my love, my life.   Running the bakery is her life.

6. A period of time during which something has existence.
   1. The period during which one (a person, an animal, a plant; a civilization, species; a star; etc) is alive.
      • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

        “My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly.
        Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan.
        “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”

      • 1936 Feb., F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack-Up", Esquire:

        Life was something you dominated if you were any good. Life yielded easily to intelligence and effort, or to what proportion could be mustered of both.

      • 1973, William Goldman, The Princess Bride, page 60:

        "Life is pain," his mother said. "Anybody that says different is selling something."

   2. The span of time during which an object operates.
      • 2016, Christine Barbour, Gerald C. Wright, Keeping the Republic, →ISBN:

        Even if the bill's life is brief, the member who introduced it can still campaign as its champion.

      This light bulb is designed to have a life of 2,000 hours.

   3. The period of time during which an object is recognizable.

      The life of this milk carton may be thousands of years in this landfill.

   4. A particular phase or period of existence.
      • 2011, Ehud Lamm, Ron Unger, Biological Computation, →ISBN, page 90:

        This would require that reproductive cells do not exist early on but rather are produced during the organism's adult life from the gemules sent from the various organs.

   5. A period extending from a when a (positive or negative) office, punishment, etc is conferred on someone until that person dies (or, sometimes, reaches retirement age).
      • 2001, Cynthia L. Cates, Wayne V. McIntosh, Law and the Web of Society, →ISBN, page 73:

        Typically, an appointed judge is appointed for life.

      • 2013, Mahendra P. Singh, German Administrative Law, →ISBN, page 108:

        As a general rule the judges of the administrative courts are appointed for life, i.e., they continue in their office till the completion of sixty-eight years in the Federal Administrative Court[.]

      1. (colloquial) A life sentence; a period of imprisonment that lasts until the convict's death (or, sometimes, parole).
7. Animation; spirit; vivacity.
   • 1711, Henry Felton, Dissertation on Reading the Classics:

     No notion of life and fire in fancy and in words.

   • 1807, William Wordsworth, To A Highland Girl:

     That gives thy gestures grace and life.

   1. The most lively component or participant.
      • 1970, Mathuram Bhoothalingam, The finger on the lute: the story of Mahakavi Subramania Bharati, National Council of Educational Research and Training, p.87:

        "Don't I know that it is you who is the life of this house. Two delightful children!"

      • 1998, Monica F. Cohen, Professional domesticity in the Victorian novel: Women, work and home, Cambridge University Press, page 32:

        And he is the life of the party at the Musgroves for precisely this reason: the navy has made him into a great storyteller.

8. A biography.

   His life of the founder is finished, except for the title.

   • 1741, Conyers Middleton, Life of Cicero:

     Writers of particular lives […] are apt to be prejudiced in favour of their subject.

9. Nature, reality, and the forms that exist in it.
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed. They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.

   • 2010, Brad Steiger, Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside, →ISBN:

     The experts also agree that the bushmen only painted from life. This belief is borne out by the other Gorozamzi Hills cave paintings, which represent elephants, hippos, deer, and giraffe.

10. An opportunity for existence.
    • 2012, Cindy Champnella, The 12 Gifts of Life, →ISBN:

      The photo book represented my promise to her—a new life—and she desperately clung to that promise.

    1. (video games) One of the player's chances to play, lost when the player's character dies or when certain mistakes are made.

       Scoring 1000 points is rewarded with an extra life.

       • 1988, David Powell, Rygar (video game review) in Your Sinclair issue 25

         Spend the time killing things and there's a bonus for each hit - but only for fatalities notched up since the start of your current life.

    2. (baseball, softball, cricket) A chance for the batter (or batting team) to bat again, given as a result of a misplay by a member of the fielding team. [from 1860s^[1]–1930s or later]
       • 1915 June 24, Philadelphians on the Diamond, in The New York Lumber Trade Journal, volume 59, oage 42:

         Borda sent a hot liner to G. Kugler, who made a nifty pick-up, but threw wild at first, giving the batter a life.

       • 1930 May, Boys' Life, page 49:

         But shortstop Tenney, on what should have been the game's last out, gave a First Team batter a life on first, when he let a ground ball slip between his legs.

    3. One of a player's chances to play in various children's playground games, lost when a mistake is made, for example being struck by the ball in dodgeball.
11. (uncountable, insurance) The life insurance industry.

    I work in life.

12. (countable) A life assured under a life assurance policy (equivalent to the policy itself for a single life contract).
    • 1862, Ellen Wood, The Channings:

      He renewed two lives which had dropped.

Verb

life (third-person singular simple present lifes, present participle lifing, simple past and past participle lifed)

1. (aviation) To replace components whose operational lifetime has expired.
   • Ignacio Fernandez, ACCENT: Adaptive Control of Manufacturing Processes for a New Generation of Jet Engine Components, in 2012, D. Knörzer, J. Szodruch, Innovation for Sustainable Aviation in a Global Environment (page 302)

     Now, the aim of the design is to extract more cycles from the component under study, at each new engine generation requirements are driving a reduction in the margin for the error, as parts cannot stand any drop in properties. Thus, the lifing procedures are refined by means of new models or additional specific testing for limiting features to increase the life of the components; […]

   • 2013, Chris Clark, From Hitler's U-Boats to Kruschev's Spyflights, page 180:

     A decision was made as a matter of internal policy that all 'lifed' components on the two Royal aircraft would be removed at half-life and fitted to the two support aircraft, where the remaining life would be used prior to overhaul at the normal time.

Interjection

life

1. (obsolete) Synonym of God's life (an oath)

References

• “life”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• life in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• “life”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “life”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Further reading

• life on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Biological life on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Phenomenological life on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• File, flie, filé, elif, lief, Fiel, file

Etymology

Borrowed from English life.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lif/, /lajf/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

life m (plural lifes)

1. (slang) life
   • 2014, “Profiter de ma life”, performed by Maska ft. Black M, Dr. Bériz:

     Profiter de ma life

     Profit from my life

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈliː.fe/, [ˈliː.ve]

Noun

līfe

1. dative singular of līf

Noun

life

1. Alternative form of lief
   • 1867, “CASTEALE CUDDE'S LAMENTATION”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 6, page 104:

     Lhaung life to Misteare Reedforth an his vamilee,

     Long life to Mister Radford and his family;

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 104