| / English Dictionary |
LIVING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
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 ("living" is a kind of...):
experience (the content of direct observation or participation in an event)
Derivation:
live (lead a certain kind of life; live in a certain style)
Sense 2
Meaning:
People who are still living
Example:
save your pity for the living
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("living" is a kind of...):
people ((plural) any group of human beings (men or women or children) collectively)
Antonym:
dead (people who are no longer living)
Sense 3
Meaning:
The financial means whereby one lives
Example:
he could no longer earn his own livelihood
Synonyms:
bread and butter; keep; livelihood; living; support; sustenance
Classified under:
Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession
Hypernyms ("living" is a kind of...):
resource (available source of wealth; a new or reserve supply that can be drawn upon when needed)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "living"):
amenities; comforts; conveniences; creature comforts (things that make you comfortable and at ease)
maintenance (means of maintenance of a family or group)
meal ticket (a source of income or livelihood)
subsistence (minimal (or marginal) resources for subsisting)
Sense 4
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 ("living" is a kind of...):
being; beingness; existence; face of the earth (the state or fact of existing)
Attribute:
alive; live (possessing life)
dead (no longer having or seeming to have or expecting to have life)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "living"):
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:
live (have life, be alive)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(informal) absolute
Example:
beat the living hell out of him
Classified under:
Similar:
absolute (perfect or complete or pure)
Domain usage:
intensifier; intensive (a modifier that has little meaning except to intensify the meaning it modifies)
colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(used of minerals or stone) in its natural state and place; not mined or quarried
Example:
carved into the living stone
Classified under:
Similar:
live (exerting force or containing energy)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Still in active use
Example:
a living language
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
extant (still in existence; not extinct or destroyed or lost)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Still in existence
Example:
the only surviving frontier blockhouse in Pennsylvania
Synonyms:
living; surviving
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
extant (still in existence; not extinct or destroyed or lost)
Sense 5
Meaning:
True to life; lifelike
Example:
the living image of her mother
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
realistic (aware or expressing awareness of things as they really are)
Sense 6
Meaning:
Pertaining to living persons
Example:
within living memory
Classified under:
Relational adjectives (pertainyms)
Pertainym:
living (people who are still living)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb live
Context examples:
Then the soldier did not know how to earn a living, went away greatly troubled, and walked the whole day, until in the evening he entered a forest.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
It’s not a very large affair, and of late years it has not done more than just give me a living.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
"Is everybody dead? Has there been a great sickness? Are you alone left of the living?"
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
Bacteria are living things that have only one cell.
(Bacterial Infections, NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)
He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes, then pronounced sentence.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
On March 24, the new moon in Aries four degrees will appear and bring you a chance to improve your home or living quarters.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
Refers to the death of living tissues.
(Necrosis, NCI Dictionary)
Any individual living (or previously living) being.
(Organism, NCI Thesaurus/BRIDG)
Death, as a cessation of movement, as a passing out and away from the lives of the living, he knew, and he knew John Thornton was dead.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
It is so d—uncomfortable, living at an inn.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
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