life
noun
Simple meaning
The state of being alive, growing, and able to reproduce
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
lyfIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlaɪf
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
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.
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.
countable
A living being; the fact of a particular individual being alive. (Chiefly when indicating individuals were lost (died) or saved.)
Living things collectively
“The oceans are teeming with life.”
A living person
A characteristic state or mode of living
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: 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.
Used this way, life is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use life
- “The oceans are teeming with life.”noun
- “He could no longer cope with the complexities of life.”noun
- “There is no life on the moon.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Insurance paid to named beneficiaries when the insured person dies.
Life preserver consisting of a sleeveless jacket of buoyant or inflatable design.
A crease on the palm.
A cast taken from the face of a living person.
Unarmed woody rhizomatous perennial plant distinguished from wild sarsaparilla by more aromatic roots and panicled umbels.
Life assurance office.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: organisms preceding their death
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.