life
Plurallives (some meanings)
Plurallives (some meanings)
- 1Existence as a living being, especially human existence in general, including the experiences and activities that make it up.
Many religions offer their own account of the origin and meaning of life.
The novel explores whether life has any purpose at all.
UsageNo article for life in general: life is short (not
incorrect: the life is short), more to life than money.Oppositedeath, nonexistence
- 2The period during which a person, animal, or plant is alive, including the rest of someone's lifetime, as in an office held for life.
He devoted his life to teaching children in rural villages.
A mayfly's entire life may last only a single day.
UsagePlural lives: they spent their lives there. Common in all my life, my whole life and spend your life doing something.
- 3A particular area or period of a person's existence, such as their private, working, or married life.
The famous chef has always refused to discuss his love life in interviews.
Throughout their married life, they kept up the tradition of a long walk every Sunday.
UsageMost often after another word naming the area: love life, married life, working life, private life.
- 4The condition of being alive, marked by processes such as growth, metabolism, and reproduction that set living things apart from nonliving matter.
Doctors worked through the night to sustain the patient's life.
Researchers debate what conditions are needed for life to arise.
UsageCommon in sustain life, support life, signs of life and life on Earth.
Oppositedeath
- 5An individual living being, counted especially when people are killed or rescued.
Thanks to the quick work of the rescue crews, not a single life was lost.
The flood claimed dozens of lives in a single night.
UsagePlural lives (not
incorrect: lifes), mostly about losing and saving: save lives, no lives were lost.Similarsoul, person, individual
Note
Here the noun turns countable and takes the plural lives, so it can be tallied. That is why it clusters around losing and saving: many lives were lost, and The Economist in 2014 credited Victorian sewers with saving more lives than almost any medical procedure. Use it when counting individuals. For the general condition, the uncountable biological sense is the one you want.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 1 fact
- The Economist in 2014 credited Victorian sewer engineering with saving more lives than almost any medical procedure. en.wiktionary.org
- 6The length of time that a thing continues to work, last, or remain usable.
Engineers tested how heat shortened the engine's life.
The roof has a life of roughly twenty years before it needs replacing.
UsageCommon in battery life, shelf life and the life of a product: extend the life of your shoes.
Note
Engineers and manufacturers put a number on this sense: a bulb designed to have a life of 2,000 hours. It also stretches to anything that functions for a while. Christine Barbour and Gerald C. Wright's textbook Keeping the Republic speaks of a bill's brief life. Setting that span for a part is the aviation verb.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- Manufacturers specify bulb lifetimes of 2,000 hours. assets.signify.com
- Christine Barbour and Gerald C. Wright wrote Keeping the Republic. books.google.com
- Keeping the Republic describes a bill's life as brief. en.wiktionary.org
- 7Living things considered generally or as a collective whole.
Scientists study how life adapts to the crushing pressure of the deep sea.
The rainforest teems with life of every kind.
UsageCommon combinations are plant life, marine life and animal life. A place teems with life or is full of life.
- 8Something that forms an essential part of a person's existence, such as their work, family, or a loved one.
After they married, she became his whole life.
For many farmers, the land is their life.
UsageUse a possessive: her work is her life. Add whole or entire for emphasis: her children are her whole life.
Similarworld, everything
- 9Energy, liveliness, and spirit in a person or thing, or the force that keeps something active and relevant.
The dancer performed with such life that the audience couldn't look away.
Fresh paint and flowers brought life back into the old house.
UsageCommon in full of life, bring life to, breathe life into and come to life.
Similarenergy, liveliness, spirit, vitality, vigor
Note
Liveliness of manner and style, often paired with a companion noun. Henry Felton in 1713 looks for “life and fire in fancy and in words,” and Wordsworth in 1807 finds “grace and life” in a Highland girl's gestures. Those doublets show where the sense is at home: in praise of style and bearing.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The Wordsworth poem containing the quotation was first published in 1807. en.wikisource.org
- Wordsworth describes a Highland girl's gestures with the words “grace and life.” gutenberg.org
- 10Nature and reality together with the forms that exist within them, taken as something observed directly.
Students in the studio sketched the model directly from life.
In her art class, students draw from life rather than copying photographs.
UsageMostly in from life and true to life: draw from life, not from photos.
Note
Painters and writers measure their work against this sense. To paint or draw from life is to work from a real subject. Stories that fail to touch life, in the American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897), ring false. The word stands for reality as opposed to invention, imitation or moral design.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- San (Bushmen) rock painters depicted elephants and giraffes. maremani.com
- The Celebrity was written by the American novelist Winston Churchill. en.wikipedia.org
- The Celebrity first appeared in 1897; its first edition bears the date 1898. gutenberg.org
- The novel describes stories as failing to touch life and having unreal characters despite their moral purpose. gutenberg.org
- 11A written account of a person's career and character; a biography.
Boswell's life of Johnson remains one of the most admired biographies in English.
She is gathering material for a new life of the painter.
UsageA life of the person, with the writer in the possessive: Boswell's life of Johnson.
Similarbiography, profile, account
Note
A name for biography long used in book titles, as in Conyers Middleton's Life of Cicero (1741). It is fully countable: Middleton himself warns that writers of particular lives favor their subjects.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Conyers Middleton wrote the biography commonly called Life of Cicero, first published in 1741. collections.soane.org
- Middleton warns that writers of individual biographies tend to favor their subjects. en.wiktionary.org
Less common meanings
- 12The manner of living characteristic of a given place, group or setting, together with its ordinary conditions and routines.
Army life suited him well: the routine, the early mornings and the close friendships.
Most freshmen need a semester or so to get used to campus life.
UsageA noun in front and no article: city life, campus life. Or turn it round: life in the city, life on the farm.
- 13The most lively or animating member of a group or gathering.
He was the life of the celebration, keeping everyone laughing until dawn.
Her cousin is the life of every wedding she attends.
UsageNearly always in the life of the party, or of another gathering.
Oppositewallflower
Note
Monica F. Cohen's Professional Domesticity in the Victorian Novel (1998) uses it of a naval officer whose storytelling carries the Musgroves' gatherings. It narrows liveliness down to a single participant, and it rarely appears outside the frame the life of.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Monica F. Cohen wrote Professional Domesticity in the Victorian Novel. books.google.pl
- Cohen uses the expression for a man whose naval storytelling animates the Musgroves' gatherings. en.wiktionary.org
- 14A full and interesting existence, especially the social activities and relationships a person has outside work or duty.
Locked in that tiny cage all day, the clever parrot didn't have much of a life.
Between night shifts and overtime, she barely had a life outside the hospital.
UsageCommon in have a life, not much of a life and no life for someone.
- 15A sentence of imprisonment lasting until the convict's death or, in some cases, release on parole.
After the verdict, he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
The jury's decision meant life behind bars for the defendant.
UsageNo article: get life, serve life, sentenced to life. In formal writing, a life sentence.
- 16In a game, one of a player's chances to keep playing, lost by a mistake, or an extra chance given by an opponent's error.
He guarded his last life carefully through the final boss fight.
In this old arcade game, you win an extra life every time you score 10,000 points.
UsagePlural lives: lose a life, win an extra life, start with three lives.
Similarchance
Note
Video games treat a life as a counted allowance: lose one when your character dies, earn an extra or bonus life by scoring. David Powell's 1988 review of Rygar in Your Sinclair counts kills “since the start of your current life,” treating each life as a single run of play. The same idea of a spare chance covers a batter let off by a fielding error and the chances children get in playground games.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- David Powell reviewed Rygar in Your Sinclair in 1988. en.wikipedia.org
- The review uses the exact quoted wording when discussing kills accumulated during the player's current life. en.wiktionary.org
- 17In religious teaching, a continued existence after death, such as in heaven or a world to come.
At the funeral, the priest reminded the family of the promise of eternal life.
Tombs were stocked with food and tools for the dead to use in the life to come.
UsageMost often eternal life, the next life, life after death and the life to come.
Similarafterlife
- 18An exclamation of surprise or emphasis, used as a mild oath; equivalent to "God's life".
Note
An oath sworn on God's life, cut down to its last word, and now obsolete. Use it only to give period color to historical dialogue. Without context a modern reader may not hear it as an oath at all, since the bare noun looks so ordinary. An exclamation mark and an old-fashioned setting do most of the signaling.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- The oath life is an abbreviation of God's life. gutenberg.org
- This interjection is obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
- 19In insurance, life insurance as a branch of the business, or a person covered by a life policy.
- 20In aviation engineering, to set or assess the safe service life of a part, after which it must be replaced.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English "lyf," from Old English "lif," from Proto-Germanic *liba ("life, body"), which came from a root meaning "to remain, stay, be left," and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- ("to stick, glue"). It is related to words like German "Leib" ("body") and "Leben" ("life"), Dutch "lijf" ("body"), and the Scandinavian "liv." The "biography" sense is likely a semantic loan from Medieval Latin "vita."
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 8 facts
- Life descends from Middle English lyf and Old English lif, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *lībą. en.wiktionary.org
- The Proto-Germanic ancestor meant life or body. en.wiktionary.org
- The Proto-Germanic noun derives from a verb meaning to remain, stay, or be left. en.wiktionary.org
- The ultimate proposed source is Proto-Indo-European *leyp-, meaning to stick or glue. en.wiktionary.org
- Life is related to German Leib, meaning body, and Leben, meaning life. en.wiktionary.org
- Life is related to Dutch lijf, meaning body. en.wiktionary.org
- Life is related to Scandinavian liv. en.wiktionary.org
- The biography sense is likely a semantic loan from Medieval Latin vita. en.wiktionary.org