# wildlife

Pronunciation: say "WYLD-lyf" /ˈwaɪldlaɪf/

## Noun

1. Animals living free in natural surroundings rather than tamed or kept by people, especially mammals, birds, and fish.
   - Simple: Wild animals like deer, birds, and fish that live freely in nature and are not kept by people.
   - _Photographers waited hours at the watering hole to capture the local wildlife._
   - _Expanding cities push native wildlife into ever-smaller patches of forest._
2. Living organisms of every kind that exist in the wild without being domesticated, from animals to plants and fungi.
   - Simple: All living things that grow in nature on their own, including animals, plants, and other kinds of life.
   - _Ecologists study the region's wildlife as a whole: its plants, fungi, animals, and microbes._
   - _Invasive species can disrupt native wildlife of every kind, not just the larger animals._

## Origin

Formed from "wild" combined with "life."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/wildlife (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).