lively
Part of speech: adj
noun
adv
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: nautical
transport
Etymology: From Middle English lyvely, lifly, from Old English līflīċ (“living, lively, long-lived, necessary to life, vital”), from Proto-West Germanic *lībalīk (“living, lively”), equivalent to life + -ly. Cognate with Scots lively, lifely (“of or pertaining to life, vital, living, life-like”), Old High German līblīh (“living, animated”), German leiblich (“bodily, corporeal”). Doublet of lifely and lifelike.
Base: life
Affixes: -ly
Inflected forms:
form: livelier
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: liveliest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: lifely
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: livelies
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: lifely
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: more lively
pos: adv
tags: comparative
form: most lively
pos: adv
tags: superlative
Senses:
gloss: Full of life; energetic, vivacious.
pos: adj
examples: But wherefore comes old Manoa in such haſt, / With youthful ſteps? much livelier then e're while / He ſeems.
[...] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of railway viaducts, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.
Since sick people were apt to be present, he could not always depend on a lively young crowd in the same ward with him, and the entertainment was not always good.
But with the lively [Giovani] Dos Santos pulling the strings behind strikers [Roman] Pavlyuchenko and [Jermain] Defoe, Spurs controlled the first half without finding the breakthrough their dominance deserved.
gloss: Bright, glowing, vivid; strong, vigorous.
pos: adj
examples: The colours of the prism are manifestly more full, intense, and lively that those of natural bodies.
His faith must be not only living, but lively too.
gloss: Endowed with or manifesting life; living.
pos: adj
tags: archaic
examples: c. 1600, Philemon Holland
chaplets of gold and silver resembling lively flowers and leaves
gloss: Representing life; lifelike.
pos: adj
tags: archaic
examples: I spied the lively picture of my father.
gloss: Airy; animated; spirited.
pos: adj
tags: archaic
examples: From grave to gay, from lively to ſevere, [...]
gloss: Fizzy; foamy; tending to produce a large head in the glass.
pos: adj
gloss: Term of address.
pos: noun
tags: informal
examples: Speak the word, my livelies, and I'll pilot her in.
gloss: Vigorously.
pos: adv
gloss: Vibrantly, vividly.
pos: adv
gloss: In a lifelike manner.
pos: adv
tags: obsolete
examples: Him to a dainty flowre she did transmew, / Which in that cloth was wrought, as if it liuely grew.
the Painter Protogenes […] having perfected the image of a wearie and panting dog, […] but being unable, as he desired, lively to represent the drivel or slaver of his mouth, vexed against his owne worke, took his spunge, and moist as it was with divers colours, threw it at the picture […].
Synonyms: frisky
peppy
zestful
live
vital
sprightly
Derived words: livelily
liveliness
lively as a grig
livened
look lively
overlively
unlively
step lively
Translations: