living
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈlɪvɪŋ/
rhymes: -ɪvɪŋ
Etymology: From Middle English livynge, libbyng, livinde, livand, livende, libbinde, libbende, from Old English lifiġende, lifiende, libbende, from Proto-West Germanic *libbjandī, from Proto-Germanic *libjandz (“living”), present participle of Proto-Germanic *libjaną (“to live”), equivalent to live + -ing. Cognate with West Frisian libbend (“living”), Dutch levend (“living”), German lebend (“living”), Swedish levande (“living”), Icelandic lifandi (“living”).
Senses: examples: text: a living, breathing child
text: Respect for the dead does not preclude respect for the living.
text: It is also pertinent to note that the current obvious decline in work on holarctic hepatics most surely reflects a current obsession with cataloging and with nomenclature of the organisms—as divorced from their study as living entities.
ref: 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page ix:
glosses: Having life; alive.
examples: text: Hunanese is a living language.
text: The cab pulled up in front of a tumbledown cheap ‘villa’ in an unfinished cheap neighbourhood, — the whole place a living monument of the defeat of the speculative builder.
ref: 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:
glosses: In use or existing.
examples: text: This is the living image of Fidel Castro.
glosses: True to life.
examples: text: This we followed for about five paces, when it suddenly widened out into a small chamber, about eight feet square, and hewn out of the living rock.
ref: 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
glosses: Of rock or stone, existing in its original state and place.
examples: text: HTML is a living standard.
glosses: Continually updated; not static
examples: text: He almost beat the living daylights out of me.
glosses: Used as an intensifier.
Synonyms: sense: having life
word: extant
word: vital
word: alive
sense: existing
word: extant
sense: representing life
word: lifey
sense: representing life
word: lifelike
sense: representing life
word: limned
sense: representing life
word: lively
sense: representing life
word: naturalistic
word: blasted
word: doggone
word: stinking
word: damned
Hyponyms: long-living
longest-living
Derived terms: activities of daily living
by the living jingo
clean-living
everliving
free-living
in living color
in living memory
knock the living daylights out of
landliving
living bandage
living constitution
living dead
living death
living end
living floor
living fossil
living hell
living hinge
living impaired
living language
living legend
livingly
living mulch
living museum
livingness
living newspaper
living picture
living proof
living rock
living room
livingry
living sculpture
living shield
living space
living statue
living stone
living street
living thing
living tissue
living tree doctrine
living trust
living wage
living wall
living will
non-living
not a living soul
scare the living daylights out of
sliving
unliving
within living memory
Related terms: live
life
alive