live
/ˈlaːv/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.54 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To spend, as one's life; to pass; to maintain; to continue in, constantly or habitually.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "He's not expected to live for more than a few months."
- "I live at 2a Acacia Avenue. At that time I'd been living in a camper for about six months."
- "Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn."
- "It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, and find himself in the rectory drawing–room. Listening here was as pleasant as talking; just to watch was pleasant. The young priests who lived here wore cassocks and birettas; their faces were fine and mild, yet really strong, like the rector's face; and in their intercourse with him and his wife they seemed to be brothers."
- "I washed your gravy boat. Where does it live?"
- "When Lazarus left his charnel-cave, And home to Mary’s house return’d, […] ‘Where wert thou, brother, those four days?’ There lives no record of reply, Which telling what it is to die Had surely added praise to praise."
Etymology
From Middle English lefe, lifen, libbe, libben, live, luvien, lyven, from Old English libban, lifian (“to live; be alive”), from Proto-West Germanic *libbjan, from Proto-Germanic *libjaną (“to live”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“to stick”). Cognates Cognate with Yola live (“to live”), North Frisian laawe, lawe, lewe, lewi, lewwe, lääwe (“to live”), Saterland Frisian lieuwje, líeuwje (“to live”), West Frisian libje (“to live”), Alemannic German läbe (“to live”), Cimbrian and Mòcheno lem (“to live”), Dutch leeven, leven (“to live”), German leben (“to live”), German Low German lęven (“to live”), Limburgish leve, léëve (“to live”), Luxembourgish liewen (“to live”), Vilamovian łaowa (“to live”), Yiddish לעבן (lebn, “to live”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål leve (“to live”), Faroese liva (“to live”), Icelandic lifa (“to live”), Norwegian Nynorsk leva, leve, liva (“to live”), Swedish leva (“to live”), Gothic 𐌻𐌹𐌱𐌰𐌽 (liban, “to live”); also Latin lippus (“half-sighted, myopic”), Greek λίπος (lípos, “fat, tallow”), Lithuanian lipti (“to stick”), Bulgarian лепя́ (lepjá, “to glue, paste, stick; to plaster, smear”), Czech lepit (“to glue, stick”), Macedonian лепи (lepi, “to glue, stick”), Polish lepić (“to mold; to glue, paste; to stick”), Russian лепи́ть (lepítʹ, “to fashion, sculpt, shape”), Serbo-Croatian лепити, лије́пити, lépiti, lijépiti (“to glue, paste; to stick”), Slovak lepiť (“to stick”), Slovene lepiti (“to stick”), Ukrainian ліпити (lipyty, “to mould, shape”), Sanskrit लिप् (lip, “to anoint, smear; to defile, soil, taint”), रिप् (rip, “deceit, fraud; injury; enemy, traitor”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *leyp-, lefe, libban, *libbjan, *libjaną
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈlaːv/
Usage
Inflected Forms
lives (present, singular)
living (participle, present)
lived (participle, past)
lived (past)
more live (comparative)
most live (superlative)