| / English Dictionary |
LIFE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Living things collectively
Example:
the oceans are teeming with life
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
animate thing; living thing (a living (or once living) entity)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "life"):
wildlife (all living things (except people) that are undomesticated)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Animation and energy in action or expression
Example:
it was a heavy play and the actors tried in vain to give life to it
Synonyms:
life; liveliness; spirit; sprightliness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
animation; brio; invigoration; spiritedness; vivification (quality of being active or spirited or alive and vigorous)
Attribute:
lively (full of life and energy)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "life"):
pertness (quality of being lively and confident)
airiness; delicacy (lightness in movement or manner)
alacrity; briskness; smartness (liveliness and eagerness)
energy; muscularity; vigor; vigour; vim (an imaginative lively style (especially style of writing))
elan (enthusiastic and assured vigor and liveliness)
esprit (liveliness of mind or spirit)
breeziness; jauntiness (a breezy liveliness)
buoyancy; irrepressibility (irrepressible liveliness and good spirit)
high-spiritedness (exuberant liveliness)
ebullience; enthusiasm; exuberance (overflowing with eager enjoyment or approval)
ginger; pep; peppiness (liveliness and energy)
Sense 3
Meaning:
The experience of being alive; the course of human events and activities
Example:
he could no longer cope with the complexities of life
Synonyms:
life; living
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
experience (the content of direct observation or participation in an event)
Sense 4
Meaning:
An account of the series of events making up a person's life
Synonyms:
biography; life; life history; life story
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
account; chronicle; history; story (a record or narrative description of past events)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "life"):
profile (biographical sketch)
hagiography (a biography that idealizes or idolizes the person (especially a person who is a saint))
autobiography (a biography of yourself)
Instance hyponyms:
Parallel Lives (a collection of biographies of famous pairs of Greeks and Romans written by Plutarch; used by Shakespeare in writing some of his plays)
Sense 5
Meaning:
A motive for living
Example:
pottery was his life
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
motivation; motive; need (the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior)
Sense 6
Meaning:
A living person
Example:
his heroism saved a life
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)
Sense 7
Meaning:
The organic phenomenon that distinguishes living organisms from nonliving ones
Example:
there is no life on the moon
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural phenomena
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
organic phenomenon ((biology) a natural phenomenon involving living plants and animals)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "life"):
biology (characteristic life processes and phenomena of living organisms)
aerobiosis (life sustained in the presence of air or oxygen)
Sense 8
Meaning:
The course of existence of an individual; the actions and events that occur in living
Example:
he is trying to rebuild his life
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
being; beingness; existence; face of the earth (the state or fact of existing)
Sense 9
Meaning:
The condition of living or the state of being alive
Example:
life depends on many chemical and physical processes
Synonyms:
aliveness; animation; life; living
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
being; beingness; existence; face of the earth (the state or fact of existing)
Attribute:
dead (no longer having or seeming to have or expecting to have life)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "life"):
eternal life; life eternal (life without beginning or end)
skin (a person's skin regarded as their life)
endurance; survival (a state of surviving; remaining alive)
Derivation:
lifer (a prisoner serving a term of life imprisonment)
Sense 10
Meaning:
A characteristic state or mode of living
Example:
real life
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
being; beingness; existence; face of the earth (the state or fact of existing)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "life"):
ghetto (any segregated mode of living or working that results from bias or stereotyping)
Sense 11
Meaning:
The period during which something is functional (as between birth and death)
Example:
he lived a long and happy life
Synonyms:
life; life-time; lifespan; lifetime
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)
Meronyms (parts of "life"):
birth (the time when something begins (especially life))
death; demise; dying (the time when something ends)
time of life (a period of time during which a person is normally in a particular life state)
age; eld (a time of life (usually defined in years) at which some particular qualification or power arises)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "life"):
afterlife; hereafter (life after death)
Derivation:
lifer (a prisoner serving a term of life imprisonment)
Sense 12
Meaning:
The period between birth and the present time
Example:
I have known him all his life
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)
Meronyms (parts of "life"):
past (a earlier period in someone's life (especially one that they have reason to keep secret))
Sense 13
Meaning:
The period from the present until death
Example:
he appointed himself emperor for life
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "life"):
days; years (the time during which someone's life continues)
Derivation:
lifer (a prisoner serving a term of life imprisonment)
Sense 14
Meaning:
A prison term lasting as long as the prisoner lives
Example:
he got life for killing the guard
Synonyms:
life; life sentence
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Hypernyms ("life" is a kind of...):
prison term; sentence; time (the period of time a prisoner is imprisoned)
Derivation:
lifer (a prisoner serving a term of life imprisonment)
Context examples:
The ability of a product to retain its properties within specified limits throughout its shelf life and to resist conditions that may affect its stated performance.
(Medical Product Stability, NCI Thesaurus)
This type of planet will continue to be the focus of future searches for life beyond our Solar System.
(Researchers find two new planets with masses similar to Earth’s near a small neighbouring star, University of Granada)
That’s your line of life, sir, and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The mechanism by which a life is ended.
(Method of Termination of Life, NCI Thesaurus)
If Louisa Musgrove would be beautiful and happy in her November of life, she will cherish all her present powers of mind."
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Then the servant led her away; but his heart melted when Snowdrop begged him to spare her life, and he said, “I will not hurt you, thou pretty child.”
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
He called it his oracle, and said, it pointed out the time for every action of his life.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Who, then, is most likely to have taken his life?
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A human life stage that begins at twelve years of age and continues until twenty-one complete years of age, generally marked by the beginning of puberty and lasting to the beginning of adulthood.
(Adolescence, NICHD)
You will need to take hormone pills for the rest of your life.
(Addison Disease, NIH: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases)
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