life

Noun

life (usually uncountable, plural lives)

1. (usually) 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.
   • I want my kids to live a good life. He gave up on life.
   • My bloodleſſe bodie waxeth chill and colde,
     And with my blood my life ſlides through my wound,
     My ſoule begins to take her flight to hell,
     And ſummones all my ſences to depart: […]c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
   1. (usually) 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.
2. (usually) 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.
   • The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.1881, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., The Common Law
3. (usually) Lifeforms, generally or collectively.
   • It's life, but not as we know it. She discovered plant life on the planet. The rover discovered signs of life on the alien world.
4. (countable, usually) A living being; the fact of a particular individual being alive. (Chiefly when indicating individuals were lost (died) or saved.)
   • Many lives were lost during the war. Her quick thinking saved many dogs' lives.
   • After taking one life, Hurricane Gloria relented and swept northward, leaving wrecked buildings, piers, boats.1987 October, Charles E. Cobb, Jr., “North Carolina's Outer Banks”, in National Geographic, volume 172, number 4, page 490
5. (usually) Existence.
   • Life is meaningless and we are all going to die.
   • Man's life on this planet has been marked by continual conflict.
   1. (usually) A worthwhile existence.
      • He gets up early in the morning, works all day long — even on weekends — and hardly sees his family. That's no life! His life was ruined by drugs.
   2. (usually) A particular aspect of existence.
      • He struggled to balance his family life, social life and work life.
      • sex life
   3. (informal, usually) Social life.
      • Get a life.
      • It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC, page 01
   4. (usually) Something which is inherently part of a person's existence, such as job, family, a loved one, etc.
      • She's my love, my life. Running the bakery is her life.
6. (usually) The period during which one (a person, an animal, a plant; a civilization, species; a star; etc) is alive.
   • “My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly.
     Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan.
     “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
   • Life was something you dominated if you were any good. Life yielded easily to intelligence and effort, or to what proportion could be mustered of both.1936 Feb., F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack-Up", Esquire
7. (usually) The span of time during which an object operates.
   • Even if the bill's life is brief, the member who introduced it can still campaign as its champion.2016, Christine Barbour, Gerald C. Wright, Keeping the Republic, →ISBN
   • This light bulb is designed to have a life of 2,000 hours.
8. (usually) The period of time during which an object is recognizable.
   • The life of this milk carton may be thousands of years in this landfill.
9. (usually) A particular phase or period of existence.
   • This would require that reproductive cells do not exist early on but rather are produced during the organism's adult life from the gemules sent from the various organs.2011, Ehud Lamm, Ron Unger, Biological Computation, →ISBN, page 90
10. (usually) A period extending from a when a (positive or negative) office, punishment, etc is conferred on someone until that person dies (or, sometimes, reaches retirement age).
    • Typically, an appointed judge is appointed for life.2001, Cynthia L. Cates, Wayne V. McIntosh, Law and the Web of Society, →ISBN, page 73
    • As a general rule the judges of the administrative courts are appointed for life, i.e., they continue in their office till the completion of sixty-eight years in the Federal Administrative Court[.]2013, Mahendra P. Singh, German Administrative Law, →ISBN, page 108
11. (colloquial, usually) A life sentence; a period of imprisonment that lasts until the convict's death (or, sometimes, parole).
12. (usually) Animation; spirit; vivacity.
    • No notion of life and fire in fancy and in words.1711, Henry Felton, Dissertation on Reading the Classics
    • That gives thy gestures grace and life.1807, William Wordsworth, To A Highland Girl
    1. (usually) The most lively component or participant.
       • "Don't I know that it is you who is the life of this house. Two delightful children!"1970, Mathuram Bhoothalingam, The finger on the lute: the story of Mahakavi Subramania Bharati, National Council of Educational Research and Training, p.87
       • And he is the life of the party at the Musgroves for precisely this reason: the navy has made him into a great storyteller.1998, Monica F. Cohen, Professional domesticity in the Victorian novel: Women, work and home, Cambridge University Press, page 32

Verb

life (third-person singular simple present lifes, present participle lifing, simple past and past participle lifed)

1. To replace components whose operational lifetime has expired.
   • Now, the aim of the design is to extract more cycles from the component under study, at each new engine generation requirements are driving a reduction in the margin for the error, as parts cannot stand any drop in properties. Thus, the lifing procedures are refined by means of new models or...Ignacio Fernandez, ACCENT: Adaptive Control of Manufacturing Processes for a New Generation of Jet Engine Components, in 2012, D. Knörzer, J. Szodruch, Innovation for Sustainable Aviation in a Global...
   • A decision was made as a matter of internal policy that all 'lifed' components on the two Royal aircraft would be removed at half-life and fitted to the two support aircraft, where the remaining life would be used prior to overhaul at the normal time.2013, Chris Clark, From Hitler's U-Boats to Kruschev's Spyflights, page 180

Interjection

1. (obsolete) Synonym of God's life (an oath).

   Synonyms:

   God's life

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Life

Life

1. (chiefly Christian Science) God.
   • Then one deep love doth supersede
     ⁠All other, when her ardent gaze
     ⁠Roves from the living brother’s face,
     And rests upon the Life indeed.1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXXII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 51
2. Conway's Game of Life.
   • Basically, I'm looking for a fast (the fastest?) way of updating grids, where each cell has to look at an arbitrary number of its neighbors. I've seen some fast life-programs, but often they took advantage of particular quirks of the rules of Life.1988 January 26, David Hiebeler, “Fast way to update grids”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)
   • Is there a known 3D totalistic or semi-totalistic automaton (Life is the latter sort - state at time t+1 depends on state at time t and count of neighbours) which exhibits the same sort of behaviour as Life (that is, a reasonable range of naturally-occuring^([sic]) still lives and short-period...1999 May 13, Thomas Womack, “3D automata with Life-style objects”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Life

Life (plural Lifes)

1. A surname.