The origin of the word life

English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• lyfe (obsolete)

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English lyf, from Old English līf, from Proto-West Germanic *līb, from Proto-Germanic *lībą (“life, body”), from *lībaną (“to remain, stay, be left”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“to stick, glue”).

Cognate with Scots life, leif (“life”), North Frisian liff (“life, limb, person, livelihood”), West Frisian liif (“belly, abdomen”), Dutch lijf (“body”), Low German lif (“body; life, life-force; waist”), German Leib (“body; womb”) and Leben (“life”), Danish, Norwegian and Swedish liv (“life; waist”), Icelandic líf (“life”). Related to belive.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /laɪf/, enPR: līf
• Hyphenation: life
• Rhymes: -aɪf

Noun[edit]

life (usually uncountable, plural lives)

1. (uncountable) 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.

   Having experienced both, the vampire decided that he preferred (un)death to life.  He gave up on life.

   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], part 1, 2nd edition, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene vii:

     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: […]

   1. (biology) 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. 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.
   • 1881, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., The Common Law

     The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.

3. 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) A living individual; 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.

   • 2014 June 14, “It’s a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891:

     One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination.

5. Existence.

   Man’s life on this planet has been marked by continual conflict.   the eternal life of the soul

   • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VI, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, volume 1, New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     « […] I realize as never before how cheap and valueless a thing is life. Life seems a joke, a cruel, grim joke. You are a laughable incident or a terrifying one as you happen to be less powerful or more powerful than some other form of life which crosses your path; but as a rule you are of no moment whatsoever to anything but yourself. You are a comic little figure, hopping from the cradle to the grave. Yes, that is our trouble—we take ourselves too seriously; but Caprona should be a sure cure for that.» She paused and laughed.

   • 2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist‎^[1], volume 407, number 8838, page 11:

     But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.

   • 1994, Violet Quill, Robert Ferro

     Most things in life, including life itself, seemed to have articulated sections, discrete and separate and straightforward.

   1. 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. A particular aspect of existence.

      He struggled to balance his family life, social life and work life.   sex life, political life

   3. (informal) 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.

   4. 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. A period of time during which something has existence.
   1. 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.”

      • 1936 Feb., F. Scott Fitzgerald, «The Crack-Up», Esquire:

        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.

      • 1973, William Goldman, The Princess Bride, p. 60:

        «Life is pain,» his mother said. «Anybody that says different is selling something.»

   2. The span of time during which an object operates.

      • 2016, Christine Barbour; Gerald C. Wright, Keeping the Republic, →ISBN:

        Even if the bill’s life is brief, the member who introduced it can still campaign as its champion.

      This light bulb is designed to have a life of 2,000 hours.

   3. The period of time during which an object is recognizable.

      The life of this milk carton may be thousands of years in this landfill.

   4. A particular phase or period of existence.

      • 2011, Ehud Lamm; Ron Unger, Biological Computation, →ISBN, page 90:

        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.

   5. 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).

      • 2001, Cynthia L. Cates; Wayne V. McIntosh, Law and the Web of Society, →ISBN, page 73:

        Typically, an appointed judge is appointed for life.

      • 2013, Mahendra P. Singh, German Administrative Law, →ISBN, page 108:

        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[.]

      1. (colloquial) A life sentence; a period of imprisonment that lasts until the convict’s death (or, sometimes, parole).
7. Animation; spirit; vivacity.
   • 1711, Henry Felton, Dissertation on Reading the Classics

     No notion of life and fire in fancy and in words.

   • 1807, William Wordsworth, To A Highland Girl

     That gives thy gestures grace and life.

   1. The most lively component or participant.
      • 1970, Mathuram Bhoothalingam, The finger on the lute: the story of Mahakavi Subramania Bharati, National Council of Educational Research and Training, p.87:

        «Don’t I know that it is you who is the life of this house. Two delightful children!»

      • 1998, Monica F. Cohen, Professional domesticity in the Victorian novel: Women, work and home, Cambridge University Press, page 32:

        And he is the life of the party at the Musgroves for precisely this reason: the navy has made him into a great storyteller.

8. A biography.

   His life of the founder is finished, except for the title.

   • 1741, Conyers Middleton, Life of Cicero

     Writers of particular lives […] are apt to be prejudiced in favour of their subject.

9. Nature, reality, and the forms that exist in it.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed. They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.

   • 2010, Brad Steiger, Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside, →ISBN:

     The experts also agree that the bushmen only painted from life. This belief is borne out by the other Gorozamzi Hills cave paintings, which represent elephants, hippos, deer, and giraffe.

10. An opportunity for existence.

    • 2012, Cindy Champnella, The 12 Gifts of Life, →ISBN:

      The photo book represented my promise to her—a new life—and she desperately clung to that promise.

    1. (video games) One of the player’s chances to play, lost when the player’s character dies or when certain mistakes are made.

       Scoring 1000 points is rewarded with an extra life.

       • 1988, David Powell, Rygar (video game review) in Your Sinclair issue 25

         Spend the time killing things and there’s a bonus for each hit — but only for fatalities notched up since the start of your current life.

    2. (baseball, softball, cricket) A chance for the batter (or batting team) to bat again, given as a result of an misplay by a member of the fielding team. [from 1860s^[1]–1930s or later]
       • 1915 June 24, Philadelphians on the Diamond, in The New York Lumber Trade Journal, volume 59, oage 42:

         Borda sent a hot liner to G. Kugler, who made a nifty pick-up, but threw wild at first, giving the batter a life.

       • 1930 May, Boys’ Life, page 49:

         But shortstop Tenney, on what should have been the game’s last out, gave a First Team batter a life on first, when he let a ground ball slip between his legs.

    3. One of a player’s chances to play in various children’s playground games, lost when a mistake is made, for example being struck by the ball in dodgeball.
11. (uncountable, insurance) The life insurance industry.

    I work in life.

12. (countable) A life assured under a life assurance policy (equivalent to the policy itself for a single life contract).

    • 1862, Ellen Wood, The Channings:

      He renewed two lives which had dropped.

Synonyms[edit]

• (philosophy, essence of manifestation and foundation of being): existence, experience
• (the world in general): time

Antonyms[edit]

• (the state that precedes death): death
• (biology): coma
• (philosophy): void

Coordinate terms[edit]

• (insurance industry): general, health, pensions

Derived terms[edit]

[edit]

• alive
• live
• lively

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

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

1. (aviation) To replace components whose operational lifetime has expired.
   • 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 Environment (page 302)

     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 additional specific testing for limiting features to increase the life of the components; […]

   • 2013, Chris Clark, From Hitler’s U-Boats to Kruschev’s Spyflights (page 180)

     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.

Interjection[edit]

life

1. (obsolete) Synonym of God’s life (“an oath”)

References[edit]

• life at OneLook Dictionary Search
• life in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• life in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• “life”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Further reading[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

• File, file, filé, flie, lief

Yola[edit]

Noun[edit]

life

1. Alternative form of lief

   • 1867, “CASTEALE CUDDE’S LAMENTATION”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 6:

     Lhaung life to Misteare Reedforth an his vamilee,

     Long life to Mister Radford and his family;

References[edit]

• Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 104

Life Definition

Life is a characteristic of a living organism that distinguishes the latter from a dead organism or a non-living thing, as specifically distinguished by the capacity to grow, metabolize, respond (to stimuli), adapt, and reproduce. Life may also pertain to the biota of a particular region. Word origin: Old English līf (life, body).

Basic Characteristics of a Living Thing

When does life begin? There is no consensus about where life begins. Does it begin at the time of fertilization or the time before or after that? The origin of life is also contestable. Despite the irresolute answer for questions about life, the basic characteristics of a living thing are as follows:

• Organization. Living things have an organized structure to perform a specific function. In particular, a living thing is made up of a single cell or a group of cells. A cell is the basic structural and functional unit of any organism.
• Homeostasis. A life form would have the ability to keep up its existence, for instance, by regulating its internal environment to keep up a constant or favorable state.
• Metabolism. A living thing would be capable of converting energy from chemicals into cellular components through anabolic reactions. It would also be capable of decomposing organic matter through catabolism.
• Growth. A living thing grows, i.e. in size or in number.
• Response. An organism has the ability to respond to stimuli or to its environment, usually through a series of metabolic reactions.
• Reproduction. One of the hallmarks of life is the ability to reproduce, i.e. producing a new of its kind.
• Adaptation. An organism is capable of changing through time to adapt to its environment.

Evolutionary History of Life

Biologically, evolution is important because it drives biodiversity. Some traits will become predominant while others will become rare over the course of time. Without evolution, life may not be the way we know it. It will not be as diverse as it is now.

The Earth itself goes through a series of changes. At one point, the Earth was an inhabitable planet. The primitive condition of the Earth was hostile to life. It was presumed that only after about one billion years from the time that the Earth first came into being that life began. RNA-based, self-replicating entities are held as the descendants of all living things. Over a significant period of time, these life forms evolved into single-celled organisms. Multicellular forms came next. They first appeared about 600 million years ago.

Tracking the history of life at various geologic eras, one would find several mass extinctions occurring in between the bursts of life. For instance, during the Permian period of the Paleozoic era, the Earth had a supercontinent called Pangaea surrounded by Panthalassa ocean. This caused the inland to be very dry and arid. Because of this, reptiles flourished as they were able to thrive even in such habitats. A reptile group Dimetrodon evolved and gave rise to therapsids. The therapsids, in turn, evolved and gave rise to cynodonts, which were the early ancestors of animals. During this period, the early dinosaur ancestors, archosaurs, also appeared. Apparently, a mass extinction called “the Great Dying” occurred and wiped about 90% of life on Earth. The next era (Mesozoic era) is called “the Age of the dinosaurs”. These animals dominated the land, the seas, and the air of the Earth. However, a mass extinction occurred and caused the death of the dinosaurs as well as other large animals. Nevertheless, mammals took the open niche and expanded.

Evolution is crucial for life to persist on the ever-changing Earth. The organisms need to have the capacity to adapt genetically and phenotypically. Engaging in symbiotic relationships with other organisms could also help increase the propensity to survive and thrive. Along with evolution, speciation transpired. Species diverge into two or more descendant species throughout the course of evolution. Unfortunately, though, most of the species that lived on Earth already met their demise. 99% of the Earth’s species are now extinct. These organisms perished and their species entirely disappeared. Thus, it would seem that the extinction of species is inevitable.

LUCA

A diagram, called an evolutionary tree, shows the evolutionary relationships of organisms. The grouping is based on the similarities and the differences in genetic and physical characteristics. The pattern of branching represents how species or entities evolved from a particular common ancestor. Tracking down the course of evolution of all living things that lived on Earth would altogether lead to the common ancestor, LUCA (last universal common ancestor). LUCA is the hypothetical ancestor of all living things and it is presumed to emerge some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.

There is no consensus as yet as to how life originated on Earth. However, many believed that the RNA-based, self-replicating entities were likely the descendant of all living things. These entities evolved into single-celled organisms containing cytoplasmic structures but lacking internal compartmentalization. Single-celled organisms lacking membrane-bound organelles are referred to as prokaryotes.

Endosymbiotic theory

The prokaryotes emerged before the eukaryotes did. They were able to bear up the primitive hostile conditions of the Earth. Later on, single-celled eukaryotes appeared around 1.6 to 2.7 billion years ago. The endosymbiotic theory proposes that larger cells took in smaller cells, such as bacteria and cyanobacteria, for a cooperative association (endosymbiosis). Together, they underwent coevolution. In due course, the smaller prokaryotes evolved into semi-autonomic organelles. The bacteria evolved into mitochondria whereas the cyanobacteria, into chloroplasts. The presence of membrane-bound organelles inside the cell led to the advent of eukaryotes.

Multicellularity

In the Neoproterozoic era, particularly in the Ediacaran period (around 600 million years ago), the first multicellular form emerged. How multicellularity came about is still a matter of debate until now. The most popular theory in this regard is that of Haeckel’s. According to his Gastraea Theory, multicellularity occurred when cells of the same species group together in a blastula-like colony, and gradually, certain cells in the colony underwent cell differentiation. Also in this period, sponge-like organisms evolved based on the recovered fossils of Ediacaran biota. They were presumed to be the first animals.

Cambrian explosion

The next era, the Paleozoic, is comprised of the geologic periods from Cambrian to Permian, each highlighted by major evolutionary events. In the Cambrian period (around 541 million years ago), a sudden burst of life occurred. This geologic event was called the Cambrian explosion. Diverse plants and animals came into being. Plants and fungi spread to the land. Soon, animals such as arthropods ventured ashore, probably to mate and lay eggs.

Rise of invertebrates

In the Ordovician period (485 to 440 million years ago), the invertebrates were the dominant animals. Primitive fish continue to evolve that in the next geologic period, Silurian, a mass evolution of fish occurred. Also in Silurian (440 to 415 million years ago), arachnids and arthropods started to colonize the land, not just ventured it. Internal gas exchange systems, waterproof external layers, skeletal systems (endo- or exoskeletons), and a form of reproduction not involving water came about and helped life on land plausible.

“Age of the Fish”

Devonian period (415 to 360 million years ago) is called the Age of the Fish. The fish became the dominant marine vertebrate species. On land, plants evolved and primitive plants, trees, and shrub-like forests served as new habitats. With the evolution of land plants, the animals, too, evolved and diversified. Amphibians were the first tetrapods to appear. They emerged around 364 million years ago.

The emergence of the amniotes

In the Carboniferous period (360 to 300 million years ago), a major evolutionary event occurred. Tetrapods that lay amniotic eggs emerged. The laying of amniotic eggs in a drier environment allowed the tetrapod amniotes to move farther away from the waterside and thereby dominate farther inland. Because of this, these early amniotes diversified greatly towards the end of this period.

Permian reptiles

In the Permian period (300 to 250 million years ago), reptiles and synapsids flourished. Soon, a major evolutionary event occurred, which led to the emergence of beast-faced therapsids. These therapsids later gave rise to the cynodonts (the early ancestors of mammals). The first archosaurs (early ancestors of dinosaurs) also appeared in the Permian period.

“Age of the Dinosaurs”

Following the Paleozoic era is the Mesozoic era (252 to 66 million years ago), which is referred to as “the Age of the Dinosaurs”. The dinosaurs roamed and dominated the Earth. However, a mass extinction event occurred. They perished together with the other large animals (>25 kg in weight) by the end of this era.

“New Life”

In the next era, Cenozoic (66 million years ago to the present day) era is called the “New Life”. Mammals expanded and diversified. The great apes evolved and led to the evolution of hominids, which was the evolutionary line that led to the Homo species. The only extant species of the genus Homo is the Homo sapiens (anatomically modern humans).

See also:

• living thing
• organism
• metabolism
• growth
• homeostasis

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