Word.ws English Dictionary

nonlife

nonlife noun: all objects or substances except those considered alive.

Noun

nonlife (countable and uncountable, plural nonlives)

  1. (uncountable) All objects or substances except those considered alive.
    • Life reproduces. Everything else is nonlife.
  2. (countable) A life so devoid of meaning or activity that it is barely worth living.
    • These guys do good jobs given the kind of nonlives they live. It's inhuman. They can't go home. They can't see their ladies.2001, Peter M Coan, Taxi: The Harry Chapin Story

Adjective

nonlife (not comparable)

  1. Relating to types of insurance which are not life insurance
    • The Dutch insurance industry has received a negative outlook from Moody's Investors Service Ltd. in London, reflecting in part concerns over unit-linked contracts and the absence of growth opportunities in the nonlife segment, according to a report released Thursday by the rating agency.

Forms of nonlife

pluralnonlives
alternative formnon-life

Origin of nonlife

From non- + life.

Questions about nonlife

What does nonlife mean?
Nonlife means all objects or substances except those considered alive.
What part of speech is nonlife?
Nonlife can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of nonlife?
The plural of nonlife is nonlives.

Words near nonlife in the dictionary

  1. nonlicentious
  2. nonlicet
  3. nonlichenized
  4. nonlicking
  5. nonlienable
  6. nonlife
  7. nonlifer
  8. nonlifers
  9. nonligand
  10. nonligatable
  11. nonligated

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nonlife (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “nonlife.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nonlife. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.