lively
/ˈlaɪv.li/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.86 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
Example Sentences
- "But wherefore comes old Manoa in such haſt, / With youthful ſteps? much livelier then e're while / He ſeems."
- "[...] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of railway viaducts, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit."
- "Since sick people were apt to be present, he could not always depend on a lively young crowd in the same ward with him, and the entertainment was not always good."
- "But with the lively [Giovani] Dos Santos pulling the strings behind strikers [Roman] Pavlyuchenko and [Jermain] Defoe, Spurs controlled the first half without finding the breakthrough their dominance deserved."
- "The colours of the prism are manifestly more full, intense, and lively that those of natural bodies."
- "His faith must be not only living, but lively too."
Etymology
From Middle English lyvely, lifly, from Old English līflīċ (“living, lively, long-lived, necessary to life, vital”), from Proto-West Germanic *lībalīk (“living, lively”), equivalent to life + -ly. Cognate with Scots lively, lifely (“of or pertaining to life, vital, living, life-like”), Old High German līblīh (“living, animated”), German leiblich (“bodily, corporeal”). Doublet of lifely and lifelike.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈlaɪv.li/
- British English: /ˈlaɪv.li/
Usage
Inflected Forms
livelier (comparative)
liveliest (superlative)
lifely (alternative)
livelies (plural)
more lively (comparative)
most lively (superlative)