liver

Noun (1)

liver (countable and uncountable, plural livers)

1. A large organ in the body that stores and metabolizes nutrients, destroys toxins and produces bile. It is responsible for thousands of biochemical reactions.
   • Steve Jobs is a famous liver transplant recipient.
2. This organ, as taken from animals used as food.
   • I'd like some goose liver pate.
   • You could fry up some chicken livers for a tasty treat. — Nah, I don't like chicken liver.
3. A dark brown colour, tinted with red and gray, like the colour of liver.
4. (obsolete) Any of various chemical compounds—particularly sulfides—thought to resemble livers in color.
   • He gave his horse some liver of antimony.

Adjective (1)

liver (not comparable)

1. Of the colour of liver (dark brown, tinted with red and gray).
   • His friend Rothwell, who had the use of the best Laveracks for breeding purposes, wrote him that one of his puppies was liver and white.2006, Rawdon Briggs Lee, A History and Description of the Modern Dogs of Great Britain & Ireland, →ISBN, page 298

Noun (2)

IPA/ˈlɪvə(ɹ)/

liver (plural livers)

1. (uncommon) Someone who lives (usually in a specified way).
   • Ephori of Sparta, hearing a dissolute liver propose a very beneficial advise unto the people, commaunded him to hold his peace, and desired an honest man to assume the invention of it unto himselfe and to propound it.1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 31, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
   • a wicked liver may be reclaimed, and prove an honest man[…].1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II...
   1. (uncommon) Someone who is alive: one of the living.
      • When as the wandring Scots and Picthts King Marius had subdude, He gave the Liuers dwellings.1592, Alb. Eng., Warner, VIII, xliii (1612), 206
      • Thou king of heaven, which […] Dost see the secret of each livers heart.1599, Greene, Alphonsus, Wks. (Rtldg.), page 234
   2. (uncommon) Someone who lives in a particular place; an inhabitant, a dweller.
      • They must instantly have been detected by the present Livers that were upon the place.1677, Cary, Chronol., II, ii, III, xiv, 252
      • One, John Powle, a Liver on Sasquehanna River.1747, Col. Rec. Pennsylv., V, 87

Adjective (2) capitalized: Liver

IPA/ˈlaɪvə(ɹ)/

Liver (comparative more Liver, superlative most Liver)

1. (rare) From or pertaining to Liverpool.
   • He was fat, he was round and his car was in the pound. But we loved Liver bloke Jan Molby all the same. Now he's decided to tell us all about his crazy old days as the Lardy Lord of the Liverpool midfield and you can get your hands on this very funny tale for free if you win this competition.1999 October 7, Jonathan Yee, “warning long post”, in uk.rec.competitions (Usenet), message-ID <qD8L3.581$aK.85990@newsr2.u-net.net>
   • ‘Your accent has changed!’
     ‘No, it hasn’t,’ I lied as I had found a cheap voice teacher for elocution lessons to remove my Liver accent.
     ‘Yes it has! You no longer sound like a female Sir Paul McCartney.’2008, Carmenica Diaz, Shame, →ISBN, page 16

   Synonyms:

   Scouse, Liverpudlian