life

CEFRA1

/ˈlaɪ̯f/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    The condition of being alive.

  2. 02

    noun

    The period during which a person or thing exists.

Examples

  • I can't live that kind of life.

  • Most people write about their daily life.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
4

Also pronounced

  • /ˈlɐɪ̯f/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

More examples

In context

  • This could mean the difference between life and death.

  • I want my kids to live a good life. He gave up on life.

  • Many lives were lost during the war. Her quick thinking saved many dogs' lives.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Quick test

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Question 1 · Quick check

The doctors worked hard to save the patient's blank after the heart attack.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

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 s...