Word.ws English Dictionary

for the life of one

for the life of one prepositional phrase: even if one's (own) life depended on it; at all.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (colloquial, only with a negative) Even if one's (own) life depended on it; at all.
    • For the life of me, I can't remember the name of that song.
    • Not for the life of him could he remember it.

Synonyms of for the life of one

All synonyms of for the life of one

Questions about for the life of one

What does for the life of one mean?
For the life of one means even if one's (own) life depended on it; at all.
What part of speech is for the life of one?
For the life of one is a prepositional phrase.

Words near for the life of one in the dictionary

  1. for the land's sake
  2. for the land's sake alive
  3. for the land's sakes
  4. for the land's sakes alive
  5. for the last time
  6. for the life of one
  7. for the lols
  8. for the lolz
  9. for the long haul
  10. for the longest time
  11. for the lose

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: for the life of one (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “for the life of one.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/for_the_life_of_one. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.