life

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   living things collectively

   the oceans are teeming with life

2. 2
   noun

   animation and energy in action or expression

   it was a heavy play and the actors tried in vain to give life to it

3. 3
   noun

   a motive for living

   Pottery is my life.

4. 4
   noun

   a living person

   My heroism saved a life.

5. 5
   noun

   the organic phenomenon that distinguishes living organisms from nonliving ones

   there is no life on the moon

6. 6
   noun

   the condition of living or the state of being alive

   while there's life there's hope

7. 7
   noun

   a characteristic state or mode of living

   social life

8. 8
   noun

   the period during which something is functional

   The battery had a short life, rendering it useless for long journeys.

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 S…