Word.ws English Dictionary

getting a life

getting a life is the present participle and gerund of get a life.

Meaning of get a life

Verb

get a life (third-person singular simple present gets a life, present participle getting a life, simple past got a life, past participle (UK) got a life or (US) gotten a life)

  1. (derogatory, idiomatic, intransitive, dismissal) To begin having a more interesting, eventful, or worthwhile existence.
    • "He's really broken. Hopefully he'll be able to find work somewhere and get a life."1995 September 14, Joseph Berger, “Disgraced, Ex-Lawman In Rockland Avoids Jail”, in New York Times, retrieved 23 Aug 2016

Questions about getting a life

What is getting a life the present participle and gerund of?
Getting a life is the present participle and gerund of get a life.

Words near getting a life in the dictionary

  1. getting a handle on
  2. getting a hold of
  3. getting a jump on
  4. getting a kick out of
  5. getting a leg up
  6. getting a life
  7. getting a line on
  8. getting a load of
  9. getting a move on
  10. getting a pair
  11. getting a rise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: getting a life (page history and authors); get a life (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: “getting a life.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/getting_a_life. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.