life

noun

the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.

the sum of the distinguishing phenomena of organisms, especially metabolism, growth, reproduction, and adaptation to environment.

the animate existence or period of animate existence of an individual: to risk one's life; a short life and a merry one.

a corresponding state, existence, or principle of existence conceived of as belonging to the soul: eternal life.

the general or universal condition of human existence: Too bad, but life is like that.

any specified period of animate existence: a man in middle life.

the period of existence, activity, or effectiveness of something inanimate, as a machine, lease, or play: The life of the car may be ten years.

a living being: Several lives were lost.

living things collectively: the hope of discovering life on other planets; insect life.

10.

a particular aspect of existence: He enjoys an active physical life.

11.

the course of existence or sum of experiences and actions that constitute a person's existence: His business has been his entire life.

12.

a biography: a newly published life of Willa Cather.

13.

animation; liveliness; spirit: a speech full of life.

14.

resilience; elasticity.

15.

the force that makes or keeps something alive; the vivifying or quickening principle: The life of the treaty has been an increase of mutual understanding and respect.

16.

a mode or manner of existence, as in the world of affairs or society: So far her business life has not overlapped her social life.

17.

the period or extent of authority, popularity, approval, etc.: the life of the committee; the life of a bestseller.

18.

a prison sentence covering the remaining portion of the offender's animate existence: The judge gave him life.

19.

anything or anyone considered to be as precious as life: She was his life.

20.

a person or thing that enlivens: the life of the party.

21.

effervescence or sparkle, as of wines.

22.

pungency or strong, sharp flavor, as of substances when fresh or in good condition.

23.

nature or any of the forms of nature as the model or subject of a work of art: drawn from life.

24.

Baseball. another opportunity given to a batter to bat because of a misplay by a fielder.

25.

(in English pool) one of a limited number of shots allowed a player: Each pool player has three lives at the beginning of the game.

Relevant Questions

What Birds Mate For Life...

adjective

26.

for or lasting a lifetime; lifelong: a life membership in a club; life imprisonment.

27.

of or pertaining to animate existence: the life force; life functions.

28.

working from nature or using a living model: a life drawing; a life class.

00:10

Life is always a great word to know.

So is gobo. Does it mean:

an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.

LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

Idioms

29.

as large as life, actually; indeed: There he stood, as large as life. Also, as big as life.

30.

come to life,

to recover consciousness.

to become animated and vigorous: The evening passed, but somehow the party never came to life.

to appear lifelike: The characters of the novel came to life on the screen.

31.

for dear life, with desperate effort, energy, or speed: We ran for dear life, with the dogs at our heels. Also, for one's life.

32.

for the life of one, as hard as one tries; even with the utmost effort: He can't understand it for the life of him.

33.

get a life, to improve the quality of one's social and professional life: often used in the imperative to express impatience with someone's behavior.

34.

not on your life, Informal. absolutely not; under no circumstances; by no means: Will I stand for such a thing? Not on your life!

35.

take one's life in one's hands, to risk death knowingly: We were warned that we were taking our lives in our hands by going through that swampy area.

36.

to the life, in perfect imitation; exactly: The portrait characterized him to the life.

Origin:
before 900; Middle English lif(e); Old English līf; cognate with Dutch lijf, German Leib body, Old Norse līf life, body; akin to live¹

Related forms

pre·life, adjective

un·der·life, noun

Synonyms
13. vivacity, sprightliness, vigor, verve, activity, energy.

Antonyms
13. inertia.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To Life

Collins

World English Dictionary

life (laɪf)

—n , pl lives
1.	the state or quality that distinguishes living beings or organisms from dead ones and from inorganic matter, characterized chiefly by metabolism, growth, and the ability to reproduce and respond to stimuliRelated: animate, vital
2.	the period between birth and death
3.	a living person or being: to save a life
4.	the time between birth and the present time
5.	a. the remainder or extent of one's life
	b. (as modifier): a life sentence; life membership; life subscription; life work
6.	short for life imprisonment
7.	the amount of time that something is active or functioning: the life of a battery
8.	a present condition, state, or mode of existence: my life is very dull here
9.	a. a biography
	b. (as modifier): a life story
10.	a. a characteristic state or mode of existence: town life
	b. (as modifier): life style
11.	the sum or course of human events and activities
12.	liveliness or high spirits: full of life
13.	a source of strength, animation, or vitality: he was the life of the show
14.	all living things, taken as a whole: there is no life on Mars; plant life
15.	sparkle, as of wines
16.	strong or high flavour, as of fresh food
17.	(modifier) arts drawn or taken from a living model: life drawing; a life mask
18.	physics another name for lifetime
19.	(in certain games) one of a number of opportunities of participation
20.	informal as large as life real and living
21.	larger than life in an exaggerated form
22.	come to life
	a. to become animate or conscious
	b. to be realistically portrayed or represented
23.	for dear life urgently or with extreme vigour or desperation
24.	for the life of one though trying desperately
25.	informal (Austral), (NZ) go for your life an expression of encouragement
26.	a matter of life and death a matter of extreme urgency
27.	informal not on your life certainly not
28.	informal the life and soul a person regarded as the main source of merriment and liveliness: the life and soul of the party
29.	informal the life of Riley an easy life
30.	to the life (of a copy or image) resembling the original exactly
31.	informal to save one's life in spite of all considerations or attempts: he couldn't play football to save his life
32.	the time of one's life a memorably enjoyable time
33.	true to life faithful to reality

Related: animate, vital

[Old English līf; related to Old High German lib, Old Norse līf life, body]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

life

O.E. life (dat. lif), from P.Gmc. *liba- (cf. O.N. lif "life, body," Du. lijf "body," O.H.G. lib "life," Ger. Leib "body"), properly "continuance, perseverance," from PIE *lip- "to remain, persevere, continue, live" (see leave). Much of the modern range of meaning was present

in O.E. Extended 1703 to "term of duration (of inanimate objects)." Life cycle is attested from 1873. Life-and-death "vitally important" is from 1822. Life of Riley is from 1919, perhaps from 1880s song about a man named O'Reilly and how he got rich and lived at ease. Lifer "prisoner serving a life sentence" is slang from 1830.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

life (līf)
n. pl. lives (līvz)

The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.
The characteristic state or condition of a living organism.
Living organisms considered as a group.
A living being, especially a person.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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American Heritage

Science Dictionary

life

(līf) Pronunciation Key

The properties or qualities that distinguish living plants and organisms from dead or inanimate matter, including the capacity to grow, metabolize nutrients, respond to stimuli, reproduce, and adapt to the environment. The definitive beginning and end of human life are complex concepts informed by medical, legal, sociological, and religious considerations.
Living organisms considered as a group, such as the plants or animals of a given region.

Slang Dictionary

life

n.
1. A cellular-automata game invented by John Horton Conway and first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner ("Scientific American", October 1970); the game's popularity had to wait a few years for computers on which it could reasonably be played, as it's no fun to simulate the cells by hand. Many hackers pass through a stage of fascination with it, and hackers at various places contributed heavily to the mathematical analysis of this game (most notably Bill Gosper at MIT, who even implemented life in TECO!; see Gosperism). When a hacker mentions `life', he is much more likely to mean this game than the magazine, the breakfast cereal, or the human state of existence.
2. The opposite of Usenet. As in "Get a life!"

Jargon
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FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

LIFE definition

language
Logic of Inheritance, Functions and Equations.
An object-oriented, functional, constraint-based language by Hassan Ait-Kacy et al of MCC, Austin TX, 1987. LIFE integrates ideas from LOGIN and LeFun.
Mailing list: life-users@prl.dec.com.
See also Wild_LIFE.
["Is There a Meaning to LIFE?", H. Ait-Kacy et al, Intl Conf on Logic Prog, 1991].
[Jargon File]
(1995-04-21)

Life definition

games
The first popular cellular automata based artificial life "game". Life was invented by British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970 and was first introduced publicly in "Scientific American" later that year.
Conway first devised what he called "The Game of Life" and "ran" it using plates placed on floor tiles in his house. Because of he ran out of floor space and kept stepping on the plates, he later moved to doing it on paper or on a checkerboard, and then moved to running Life as a computer program on a PDP-7. That first implementation of Life as a computer program was written by M. J. T. Guy and S. R. Bourne (the author of Unix's Bourne shell).
Life uses a rectangular grid of binary (live or dead) cells each of which is updated at each step according to the previous state of its eight neighbours as follows: a live cell with less than two, or more than three, live neighbours dies. A dead cell with exactly three neighbours becomes alive. Other cells do not change.
While the rules are fairly simple, the patterns that can arise are of a complexity resembling that of organic systems -- hence the name "Life".
Many hackers pass through a stage of fascination with Life, and hackers at various places contributed heavily to the mathematical analysis of this game (most notably Bill Gosper at MIT, who even implemented Life in TECO!; see Gosperism). When a hacker mentions "life", he is more likely to mean this game than the magazine, the breakfast cereal, the 1950s-era board game or the human state of existence.
Yahoo! (http://yahoo.com/Science/Artificial_Life/Conway_s_Game_of_Life/).
Demonstration (http://research.digital.com/nsl/projects/life/).
["Scientific American" 223, October 1970, p120-123, 224; February 1971 p121-117, Martin Gardner].
["The Garden in The Machine: the Emerging Science of Artificial Life", Claus Emmeche, 1994].
["Winning Ways, For Your Mathematical Plays", Elwyn R. Berlekamp, John Horton Conway and Richard K. Guy, 1982].
["The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge", William Poundstone, 1985].
[Jargon File]
(1997-09-07)

life definition

jargon
The opposite of Usenet. As in "Get a life!"
[Jargon File]
(1995-04-21)

Easton

Bible Dictionary

Life definition

generally of physical life (Gen. 2:7; Luke 16:25, etc.); also used figuratively (1) for immortality (Heb. 7:16); (2) conduct or manner of life (Rom. 6:4); (3) spiritual life or salvation (John 3:16, 17, 18, 36); (4) eternal life (Matt. 19:16, 17; John 3:15); of God and Christ as the absolute source and cause of all life (John 1:4; 5:26, 39; 11:25; 12:50).

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

life

In addition to the idioms beginning with life, also see bet one's ass (life); big as life; breathe new life into; bring to life; change of life; charmed life; come alive (to life); dog's life; facts of life; for dear life; for the life of; get a life; good life; late in life; lay down (one's life); lead a double life; matter of life and death; new lease on life; not on your life; of one's life; once in a lifetime; prime of life; risk life and limb; run for it (one's life); staff of life; story of my life; take someone's life; to save one's life; to the life; true to (life); variety is the spice of life; walk of life; while there's life there's hope; you bet (your life).