Word: life Part of Speech: noun 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”), Saterland Frisian Lieuw (“body”), West Frisian liif (“body”), Cimbrian laip (“body”), Dutch lijf (“body”) and leven (“life”), German Leib (“body; womb”) and Leben (“life”), Low German Lief (“body; life”), Luxembourgish Leif, Läif (“body”), Vilamovian łaowa (“life”), Yiddish לײַב (layb, “body”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish liv (“life; waist”), Faroese lív (“life”), Icelandic líf (“life”). Related to belive. The sense "biography" is likely a semantic loan from Medieval Latin vīta (“biography; hagiography”). Pronunciation: /ˈlaɪ̯f/, [ˈlaɪ̯f], /ˈlɐɪ̯f/, [ˈlɐɪ̯f], /ˈlɜɪ̯f/ 1. 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. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: I want my kids to live a good life. He gave up on life. Example: 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: […] 2. 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. Labels: uncountable, usually 3. 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. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. 4. Lifeforms, generally or collectively. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: 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. 5. A living being; the fact of a particular individual being alive. (Chiefly when indicating individuals were lost (died) or saved.) Labels: countable, usually Example: Many lives were lost during the war. Her quick thinking saved many dogs' lives. Example: 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. 6. Existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: Life is meaningless and we are all going to die. Example: Man's life on this planet has been marked by continual conflict. 7. Existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: 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. 8. Existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: He struggled to balance his family life, social life and work life. Example: sex life 9. Existence. Labels: informal, uncountable, usually Example: Get a life. Example: 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. 10. Existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: She's my love, my life. Running the bakery is her life. 11. A period of time during which something has existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: “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.” Example: 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. 12. A period of time during which something has existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: Even if the bill's life is brief, the member who introduced it can still campaign as its champion. Example: This light bulb is designed to have a life of 2,000 hours. 13. A period of time during which something has existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: The life of this milk carton may be thousands of years in this landfill. 14. A period of time during which something has existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: 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. 15. A period of time during which something has existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: Typically, an appointed judge is appointed for life. Example: 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[.] 16. A period of time during which something has existence. Labels: colloquial, uncountable, usually 17. Animation; spirit; vivacity. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: No notion of life and fire in fancy and in words. Example: That gives thy gestures grace and life. 18. Animation; spirit; vivacity. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: "Don't I know that it is you who is the life of this house. Two delightful children!" Example: And he is the life of the party at the Musgroves for precisely this reason: the navy has made him into a great storyteller. 19. A biography. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: His life of the founder is finished, except for the title. Example: Writers of particular lives[…]are apt to be prejudiced in favour of their subject. 20. Nature, reality, and the forms that exist in it. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: 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. Example: 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. 21. An opportunity for existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: The photo book represented my promise to her—a new life—and she desperately clung to that promise. 22. An opportunity for existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: Scoring 1000 points is rewarded with an extra life. Example: 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. 23. An opportunity for existence. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: Borda sent a hot liner to G. Kugler, who made a nifty pick-up, but threw wild at first, giving the batter a life. Example: 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. 24. An opportunity for existence. Labels: uncountable, usually 25. The life insurance industry. Labels: uncountable, usually Example: I work in life. 26. A life assured under a life assurance policy (equivalent to the policy itself for a single life contract). Labels: countable, usually Example: He renewed two lives which had dropped.