lively

LYV-lee/ˈlaɪv.li/

10 meanings of lively

1
adjective
Full of life and energy; cheerful, animated, and spirited.
The market square was lively with vendors calling out their prices.
She gave a lively performance that kept the audience on its feet.
Similaranimated, spirited, energetic, vibrant, bustling
Oppositedull, quiet, lifeless, listless
Note
The everyday sense, and the one that shows the word's build most plainly: Old English līflīċ, life plus -ly, an adjective like friendly rather than an adverb like quickly. It once also covered "living", "long-lived" and "vital". It compares with -er and -est, so Milton's Manoa seems "much livelier" than before. It fits people, crowds and places alike, from a young crowd on a hospital ward to a forward pulling the strings.
2
adjective
Bright, glowing, and vivid; strong and vigorous in appearance.
The fabric came in a lively crimson that caught everyone's eye.
Afternoon sunlight gave the painting a lively warmth.
Similarvivid, bright, vibrant, brilliant, bold
Oppositedull, drab, muted
Note
Here the energy belongs to a quality rather than a person. Isaac Newton's Opticks (1704) calls the colors of the prism "more full, intense, and lively" than those of natural bodies. Robert South's sermon of 1688 asks for faith "not only living, but lively too": vigorous, not merely alive. That line sets this meaning against the archaic "living" sense.
3
adverb
In a vigorous, energetic manner.
He stepped lively across the deck to dodge the incoming wave.
The dancers moved lively to the quickening rhythm.
Similarbriskly, nimbly, quickly, smartly, energetically
Oppositeslowly, sluggishly
Note
An adverb in its own right, not an adjective pressed into service. It descends from Old English līflīċe, a formation separate from the adjective's līflīċ, which is why step lively is not a slip. It compares with more and most (more lively, most lively), while the adjective takes livelier and liveliest.
4
adverb
In a vibrant, vivid manner.
The narrator recounted the battle so lively that listeners felt present.
Her memoir renders childhood scenes lively on the page.
Similarvividly, graphically, evocatively, colorfully
5
adjective
Fizzy and foamy; tending to produce a large head of foam when poured into a glass.
The ale was so lively it left a thick collar of foam on every pour.
Brewers prize a lively bottle-conditioned beer for its natural carbonation.
Similarfizzy, bubbly, effervescent, frothy, sparkling
Oppositeflat, still
6
nouncolloquial
A word used to address or hail someone, as in calling out to a person.
All aboard, lively, we're casting off with the tide!
Mind the gap, lively, the train is about to leave.
Note
A sailor's way of hailing a crew, heard in the plural. Herman Melville's Typee (1846) has "Speak the word, my livelies, and I'll pilot her in", with the speaker addressing his shipmates much as he might say hearties or lads. The plural is livelies, with y turning to ie. The word is informal: it belongs to talk on deck, not to formal address.

7
adjectivearchaic
Airy and animated; spirited and full of cheerful buoyancy.
The poet's lively wit kept the salon entertained for hours.
A lively reel set every guest tapping their feet.
Note
A matter of tone and manner rather than physical energy. Alexander Pope's An Essay on Man (1734) moves "from grave to gay, from lively to severe", setting lively against severe just as gay stands against grave. The pairing shows the archaic shade: lightness of spirit as the opposite of sternness. By contrast, the everyday sense is about energy and bustle.
8
adjectivearchaic
Possessing or showing life; living rather than dead or inanimate.
Ancient writers distinguished lively things from mere stone and dust.
He marveled that so lively a creature could spring from a tiny seed.
Note
The meaning nearest the Old English word: simply alive. Philemon Holland, around 1600, describes chaplets of gold and silver "resembling lively flowers and leaves", meaning real, growing flowers set against metal copies. A modern reader will hear "energetic", so current writing needs living or alive. Keep this sense for reading older texts, not for using.
9
adjectivearchaic
Representing life faithfully; lifelike in appearance or depiction.
The portrait gave so lively an image of the duke that visitors bowed to it.
I spied the lively picture of my father.
1632, Philip Massinger, Nathan Field
Note
A portrait word from older English. In Massinger and Field's The Fatal Dowry (1632), a character spies "the lively picture of my father". That picture is true to life, not bustling with activity. Because the sense is archaic, it is easily misread, and lifelike now does its work. The obsolete adverb carries the same idea over to how a thing is rendered.
10
adverbobsolete
In a lifelike manner; so as to represent life vividly.
The engraver rendered the saint lively, each fold of cloth seeming real.
Him to a dainty flowre she did transmew, / Which in that cloth was wrought, as if it liuely grew.
1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
Note
The adverb of artful imitation, partner to the archaic "lifelike" adjective and now obsolete. Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590) spells it liuely: a flower woven into cloth looks "as if it liuely grew". It goes with verbs of making, seeming and representing, so read it as "true to life", never as "energetically".

Practice

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Origins

Meanings 1–2, 5–9

From Middle English lyvely, from Old English līflīċ ("living, lively, vital"), from Proto-West Germanic *lībalīk, essentially "life" plus "-ly." It is related to Old High German līblīh ("living, animated") and German leiblich ("bodily"), and is a doublet of lifely and lifelike.

Meanings 3–4, 10

From Middle English lyvely, from Old English līflīċe, equivalent to "life" plus "-ly."