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 Swedish liv (“life; waist”), Faroese lív (“life”), Icelandic líf (“life”). Related to belive. The sense "biography" is likely a semantic loan from Medieval Latin vīta (“biography; hagiography”).
Usually The state of organisms preceding their death, characterized by biological processes such as metabolism and reproduction and distinguishing them from inanimate objects; the state of being alive and living.
I want my kids to live a good life. He gave up on life.
My bloodleſſe bodie waxeth chill and colde, And with my blood my life ſlides through my wound, My ſoule begins to take her flight to hell, And ſummones all my ſences to depart: […]c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene vii:
2
Biology, Natural sciencesUsually The status possessed by any of a number of entities, including animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and sometimes viruses, which have the properties of replication and metabolism.
3
Usually The animating principle or force that keeps an inorganic thing or concept metaphorically alive (dynamic, relevant, etc) and makes it a "living document", "living constitution", etc.
The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.1881, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., The Common Law:
4
Usually Lifeforms, generally or collectively.
It's life, but not as we know it. She discovered plant life on the planet. The rover discovered signs of life on the alien world.
5
Usually A living being; the fact of a particular individual being alive. (Chiefly when indicating individuals were lost (died) or saved.)
Many lives were lost during the war. Her quick thinking saved many dogs' lives.
One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination.2014 June 14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891:
6
Usually Existence.
Life is meaningless and we are all going to die.
Man's life on this planet has been marked by continual conflict.
4 more examples
the eternal life of the soul
"[…]I realize as never before how cheap and valueless a thing is life. Life seems a joke, a cruel, grim joke. You are a laughable incident or a terrifying one as you happen to be less powerful or more powerful than some other form of life which crosses your path; but as a rule you are of no moment whatsoever to anything but yourself. You are a comic little figure, hopping from the cradle to the grave. Yes, that is our trouble—we take ourselves too seriously; but Caprona should be a sure cure for that." She paused and laughed.1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VI, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:
But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 11:
Most things in life, including life itself, seemed to have articulated sections, discrete and separate and straightforward.1994, Robert Ferro, Violet Quill:
7
Usually A worthwhile existence.
He gets up early in the morning, works all day long — even on weekends — and hardly sees his family. That's no life! His life was ruined by drugs.
8
Usually A particular aspect of existence.
He struggled to balance his family life, social life and work life.
It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC, page 01:
10
Usually Something which is inherently part of a person's existence, such as job, family, a loved one, etc.
She's my love, my life. Running the bakery is her life.
› A period of time during which something has…
11
Usually The period during which one (a person, an animal, a plant; a civilization, species; a star; etc) is alive.
“My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
Life was something you dominated if you were any good. Life yielded easily to intelligence and effort, or to what proportion could be mustered of both.1936 Feb., F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack-Up", Esquire
1 more example
"Life is pain," his mother said. "Anybody that says different is selling something."1973, William Goldman, The Princess Bride, page 60:
12
Usually The span of time during which an object operates.
Even if the bill's life is brief, the member who introduced it can still campaign as its champion.2016, Christine Barbour, Gerald C. Wright, Keeping the Republic, →ISBN:
This light bulb is designed to have a life of 2,000 hours.
13
Usually The period of time during which an object is recognizable.
The life of this milk carton may be thousands of years in this landfill.
14
Usually A particular phase or period of existence.
This would require that reproductive cells do not exist early on but rather are produced during the organism's adult life from the gemules sent from the various organs.2011, Ehud Lamm, Ron Unger, Biological Computation, →ISBN, page 90:
15
Usually A period extending from a when a (positive or negative) office, punishment, etc is conferred on someone until that person dies (or, sometimes, reaches retirement age).
Typically, an appointed judge is appointed for life.2001, Cynthia L. Cates, Wayne V. McIntosh, Law and the Web of Society, →ISBN, page 73:
As a general rule the judges of the administrative courts are appointed for life, i.e., they continue in their office till the completion of sixty-eight years in the Federal Administrative Court[.]2013, Mahendra P. Singh, German Administrative Law, →ISBN, page 108:
› A period of time during which something has… › A period extending from a when a (positive…
16
Colloquial, Usually A life sentence; a period of imprisonment that lasts until the convict's death (or, sometimes, parole).
17
Usually Animation; spirit; vivacity.
No notion of life and fire in fancy and in words.1711, Henry Felton, Dissertation on Reading the Classics:
That gives thy gestures grace and life.1807, William Wordsworth, To A Highland Girl:
18
Usually The most lively component or participant.
"Don't I know that it is you who is the life of this house. Two delightful children!"1970, Mathuram Bhoothalingam, The finger on the lute: the story of Mahakavi Subramania Bharati, National Council of Educational Research and Training, p.87
And he is the life of the party at the Musgroves for precisely this reason: the navy has made him into a great storyteller.1998, Monica F. Cohen, Professional domesticity in the Victorian novel: Women, work and home, Cambridge University Press, page 32:
19
Usually A biography.
His life of the founder is finished, except for the title.
Writers of particular lives[…]are apt to be prejudiced in favour of their subject.1741, Conyers Middleton, Life of Cicero:
20
Usually Nature, reality, and the forms that exist in it.
The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed. They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
The experts also agree that the bushmen only painted from life. This belief is borne out by the other Gorozamzi Hills cave paintings, which represent elephants, hippos, deer, and giraffe.2010, Brad Steiger, Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside, →ISBN:
21
Usually An opportunity for existence.
The photo book represented my promise to her—a new life—and she desperately clung to that promise.2012, Cindy Champnella, The 12 Gifts of Life, →ISBN:
22
Video gamesUsually One of the player's chances to play, lost when the player's character dies or when certain mistakes are made.
Scoring 1000 points is rewarded with an extra life.
Spend the time killing things and there's a bonus for each hit - but only for fatalities notched up since the start of your current life.1988, David Powell, Rygar (video game review) in Your Sinclair issue 25
23
Ball games, Baseball, Cricket, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Softball, SportsUsually A chance for the batter (or batting team) to bat again, given as a result of a misplay by a member of the fielding team.
Borda sent a hot liner to G. Kugler, who made a nifty pick-up, but threw wild at first, giving the batter a life.1915 June 24, “Philadelphians on the Diamond”, in The New York Lumber Trade Journal, volume 59, page 42:
But shortstop Tenney, on what should have been the game's last out, gave a First Team batter a life on first, when he let a ground ball slip between his legs.1930 May, Boys' Life, page 49:
24
Usually One of a player's chances to play in various children's playground games, lost when a mistake is made, for example being struck by the ball in dodgeball.
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 Swedish liv (“life; waist”), Faroese lív (“life”), Icelandic líf (“life”). Related to belive. The sense "biography" is likely a semantic loan from Medieval Latin vīta (“biography; hagiography”).
Now, the aim of the design is to extract more cycles from the component under study, at each new engine generation requirements are driving a reduction in the margin for the error, as parts cannot stand any drop in properties. Thus, the lifing procedures are refined by means of new models or additional specific testing for limiting features to increase the life of the components; […]Ignacio Fernandez, ACCENT: Adaptive Control of Manufacturing Processes for a New Generation of Jet Engine Components, in 2012, D. Knörzer, J. Szodruch, Innovation for Sustainable Aviation in a Global Environment (page 302)
A decision was made as a matter of internal policy that all 'lifed' components on the two Royal aircraft would be removed at half-life and fitted to the two support aircraft, where the remaining life would be used prior to overhaul at the normal time.2013, Chris Clark, From Hitler's U-Boats to Kruschev's Spyflights, page 180:
life
intj
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 Swedish liv (“life; waist”), Faroese lív (“life”), Icelandic líf (“life”). Related to belive. The sense "biography" is likely a semantic loan from Medieval Latin vīta (“biography; hagiography”).