lively

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   filled with events or activity

   a lively period in history

2. 2
   adj

   full of life and energy

   a lively discussion

3. 3
   adj

   Full of life; energetic, vivacious.

   But wherefore comes old Manoa in such haſt, / With youthful ſteps? much livelier then e're while / He ſeems.

4. 4
   adj

   Bright, glowing, vivid; strong, vigorous.

   The colours of the prism are manifestly more full, intense, and lively that those of natural bodies.

5. 5
   adj

   Endowed with or manifesting life; living.

   c. 1600, Philemon Holland chaplets of gold and silver resembling lively flowers and leaves

6. 6
   adj

   Representing life; lifelike.

   I spied the lively picture of my father.

7. 7
   adj

   Airy; animated; spirited.

   From grave to gay, from lively to ſevere, [...]

8. 8
   noun

   Term of address.

   Speak the word, my livelies, and I'll pilot her in.

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.