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12 definitions found
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Life \Life\ (l[imac]f), n.; pl. {Lives} (l[imac]vz). [AS.
l[imac]f; akin to D. lijf body, G. leib body, MHG. l[imac]p
life, body, OHG. l[imac]b life, Icel. l[imac]f, life, body,
Sw. lif, Dan. liv, and E. live, v. [root]119. See {Live}, and
cf. {Alive}.]
1. The state of being which begins with generation, birth, or
germination, and ends with death; also, the time during
which this state continues; that state of an animal or
plant in which all or any of its organs are capable of
performing all or any of their functions; -- used of all
animal and vegetable organisms.
[1913 Webster]
2. Of human beings: The union of the soul and body; also, the
duration of their union; sometimes, the deathless quality
or existence of the soul; as, man is a creature having an
immortal life.
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She shows a body rather than a life. --Shak.
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3. (Philos.) The potential principle, or force, by which the
organs of animals and plants are started and continued in
the performance of their several and cooperative
functions; the vital force, whether regarded as physical
or spiritual.
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4. Figuratively: The potential or animating principle, also,
the period of duration, of anything that is conceived of
as resembling a natural organism in structure or
functions; as, the life of a state, a machine, or a book;
authority is the life of government.
[1913 Webster]
5. A certain way or manner of living with respect to
conditions, circumstances, character, conduct, occupation,
etc.; hence, human affairs; also, lives, considered
collectively, as a distinct class or type; as, low life; a
good or evil life; the life of Indians, or of miners.
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That which before us lies in daily life. --Milton.
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By experience of life abroad in the world. --Ascham.
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Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime. --Longfellow.
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'T is from high life high characters are drawn.
--Pope
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6. Animation; spirit; vivacity; vigor; energy.
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No notion of life and fire in fancy and in words.
--Felton.
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That gives thy gestures grace and life.
--Wordsworth.
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7. That which imparts or excites spirit or vigor; that upon
which enjoyment or success depends; as, he was the life of
the company, or of the enterprise.
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8. The living or actual form, person, thing, or state; as, a
picture or a description from, the life.
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9. A person; a living being, usually a human being; as, many
lives were sacrificed.
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10. The system of animal nature; animals in general, or
considered collectively.
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Full nature swarms with life. --Thomson.
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11. An essential constituent of life, esp: the blood.
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The words that I speak unto you . . . they are
life. --John vi. 63.
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The warm life came issuing through the wound.
--Pope
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12. A history of the acts and events of a life; a biography;
as, Johnson wrote the life of Milton.
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13. Enjoyment in the right use of the powers; especially, a
spiritual existence; happiness in the favor of God;
heavenly felicity.
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14. Something dear to one as one's existence; a darling; --
used as a term of endearment.
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Note: Life forms the first part of many compounds, for the
most part of obvious meaning; as, life-giving,
life-sustaining, etc.
[1913 Webster]
{Life annuity}, an annuity payable during one's life.
{Life arrow}, {Life rocket}, {Life shot}, an arrow, rocket,
or shot, for carrying an attached line to a vessel in
distress in order to save life.
{Life assurance}. See {Life insurance}, below.
{Life buoy}. See {Buoy}.
{Life car}, a water-tight boat or box, traveling on a line
from a wrecked vessel to the shore. In it person are
hauled through the waves and surf.
{Life drop}, a drop of vital blood. --Byron.
{Life estate} (Law), an estate which is held during the term
of some certain person's life, but does not pass by
inheritance.
{Life everlasting} (Bot.), a plant with white or yellow
persistent scales about the heads of the flowers, as
{Antennaria}, and {Gnaphalium}; cudweed.
{Life of an execution} (Law), the period when an execution is
in force, or before it expires.
{Life guard}. (Mil.) See under {Guard}.
{Life insurance}, the act or system of insuring against
death; a contract by which the insurer undertakes, in
consideration of the payment of a premium (usually at
stated periods), to pay a stipulated sum in the event of
the death of the insured or of a third person in whose
life the insured has an interest.
{Life interest}, an estate or interest which lasts during
one's life, or the life of another person, but does not
pass by inheritance.
{Life land} (Law), land held by lease for the term of a life
or lives.
{Life line}.
(a) (Naut.) A line along any part of a vessel for the
security of sailors.
(b) A line attached to a life boat, or to any life saving
apparatus, to be grasped by a person in the water.
{Life rate}, rate of premium for insuring a life.
{Life rent}, the rent of a life estate; rent or property to
which one is entitled during one's life.
{Life school}, a school for artists in which they model,
paint, or draw from living models.
{Lifetable}, a table showing the probability of life at
different ages.
{To lose one's life}, to die.
{To seek the life of}, to seek to kill.
{To the life}, so as closely to resemble the living person or
the subject; as, the portrait was drawn to the life.
[1913 Webster]
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
life
n 1: a characteristic state or mode of living; "social life";
"city life"; "real life"
2: the course of existence of an individual; the actions and
events that occur in living; "he hoped for a new life in
Australia"; "he wanted to live his own life without
interference from others"
3: the experience of living; the course of human events and
activities; "he could no longer cope with the complexities
of life" [syn: {living}]
4: the condition of living or the state of being alive; "while
there's life there's hope"; "life depends on many chemical
and physical processes" [syn: {animation}, {living}, {aliveness}]
5: the period during which something is functional (as between
birth and death); "the battery had a short life"; "he
lived a long and happy life" [syn: {lifetime}, {lifespan}]
6: the period between birth and the present time; "I have known
him all his life"
7: animation and energy in action or expression; "it was a
heavy play and the actors tried in vain to give life to
it" [syn: {liveliness}, {spirit}, {sprightliness}]
8: an account of the series of events making up a person's life
[syn: {biography}, {life story}, {life history}]
9: the period from the present until death; "he appointed
himself emperor for life"
10: a living person; "his heroism saved a life"
11: living things collectively; "the oceans are teeming with
life"
12: a motive for living; "pottery was his life"
13: the organic phenomenon that distinguishes living organisms
from nonliving ones; "there is no life on the moon"
14: a prison term lasting as long as the prisoner lives; "he got
life for killing the guard" [syn: {life sentence}]
[also: {lives} (pl)]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
235 Moby Thesaurus words for "life":
Adamite, Clio, Muse of history, activator, activity, adventures,
affairs, age, alacrity, an existence, animal spirits, animation,
animator, annals, anxiety, anxiousness, appetite, ardor, arouser,
autobiography, avidity, avidness, being, biographical sketch,
biography, body, bounce, breathless impatience, breeziness, brio,
briskness, bubbliness, capersomeness, case history, cat, chap,
character, cheerful readiness, chronicle, chronicles, chronology,
circumstances, coltishness, compulsion, concerns,
condition of things, conditions, confessions, creature, critter,
curriculum vitae, customer, dash, dazzle, dealings, diary, doings,
duck, duration, eagerness, earthling, ebullience, effervescence,
elan, elan vital, elasticity, energizer, energy, ens, entelechy,
enthusiasm, entity, esprit, esse, essence, existence, experiences,
exuberance, fellow, fixation, flair, flavor, fortunes, forwardness,
freshness, friskiness, frolicsomeness, gaiety, gamesomeness,
gayness, generation, get-up-and-go, glow, goings-on, groundling,
gust, gusto, guy, hagiography, hagiology, hand, head, heartiness,
historiography, history, homo, human, human being, human dynamo,
impatience, impetuosity, impetus, individual, joie de vivre, joker,
journal, keen desire, keenness, legend, life and letters,
life story, lifeblood, lifetime, liveliness, living, living soul,
lustiness, man, march of events, martyrology, materiality, matters,
memoir, memoirs, memorabilia, memorial, memorials, mettle, monad,
mortal, motivating force, motive power, moving spirit, moxie,
necrology, nose, obituary, object, obsession, occurrence, one,
oomph, organism, party, passion, pep, peppiness,
period of existence, perkiness, person, persona, personage,
personality, pertness, photobiography, piss and vinegar, pizzazz,
playfulness, preoccupation, presence, proceedings, profile,
promptness, pungency, quickness, readiness, record, relations,
resilience, restorative, resume, robustness, rollicksomeness,
rompishness, run of things, sentience, single, skittishness,
somebody, someone, something, soul, spark of life, spark plug,
sparkle, spirit, spiritedness, spirits, sportiveness,
sprightliness, spring, state of affairs, stimulant, stimulator,
stimulus, story, subsistence, substantiality, survival, sustenance,
tellurian, terran, the times, the world, theory of history, thing,
time, tonic, unit, verve, viability, vigor, vim, vital spark,
vitality, vivaciousness, vivacity, warmth, way of life,
what happens, worldling, zest, zestfulness, zing, zip
From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:
LIFE
Laboratory for International Fuzzy Engineering [research] (MITI)
From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:
LIFE
Logistics Interface For manufacturing Environment
From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:
life n. 1. A cellular-automata game invented by John Horton Conway and
first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner ("Scientific American",
October 1970); the game's popularity had to wait a few years for
computers on which it could reasonably be played, as it's no fun to
simulate the cells by hand. Many hackers pass through a stage of
fascination with it, and hackers at various places contributed heavily
to the mathematical analysis of this game (most notably Bill Gosper at
MIT, who even implemented life in {TECO}!; see {Gosperism}). When a
hacker mentions `life', he is much more likely to mean this game than
the magazine, the breakfast cereal, or the human state of existence. 2.
The opposite of {Usenet}. As in "{Get a life!}"
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
Life
The first popular {cellular automata} based
{artificial life} "game". Life was invented by British
mathematician {John Horton Conway} in 1970 and was first
introduced publicly in "Scientific American" later that year.
Conway first devised what he called "The Game of Life" and
"ran" it using plates placed on floor tiles in his house.
Because of he ran out of floor space and kept stepping on the
plates, he later moved to doing it on paper or on a
checkerboard, and then moved to running Life as a computer
program on a {PDP-7}. That first implementation of Life as a
computer program was written by M. J. T. Guy and
{S. R. Bourne} (the author of {Unix}'s {Bourne shell}).
Life uses a rectangular grid of binary (live or dead) cells
each of which is updated at each step according to the
previous state of its eight neighbours as follows: a live cell
with less than two, or more than three, live neighbours dies.
A dead cell with exactly three neighbours becomes alive.
Other cells do not change.
While the rules are fairly simple, the patterns that can arise
are of a complexity resembling that of organic systems -- hence
the name "Life".
Many hackers pass through a stage of fascination with Life,
and hackers at various places contributed heavily to the
mathematical analysis of this game (most notably {Bill Gosper}
at {MIT}, who even implemented Life in {TECO}!; see
{Gosperism}). When a hacker mentions "life", he is more
likely to mean this game than the magazine, the breakfast
cereal, the 1950s-era board game or the human state of
existence.
{Yahoo!
(http://www.yahoo.com/Science/Artificial_Life/Conway_s_Game_of_Life/)}.
{Demonstration
(http://www.research.digital.com/nsl/projects/life/)}.
["Scientific American" 223, October 1970, p120-123, 224;
February 1971 p121-117, Martin Gardner].
["The Garden in The Machine: the Emerging Science of
Artificial Life", Claus Emmeche, 1994].
["Winning Ways, For Your Mathematical Plays", Elwyn
R. Berlekamp, John Horton Conway and Richard K. Guy, 1982].
["The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of
Scientific Knowledge", William Poundstone, 1985].
[{Jargon File}]
(1997-09-07)
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
LIFE
Logic of Inheritance, Functions and Equations.
An {object-oriented}, {functional}, {constraint}-based
language by Hassan Ait-Kacy et al of {MCC},
Austin TX, 1987. LIFE integrates ideas from {LOGIN} and
{LeFun}.
Mailing list: life-users@prl.dec.com.
See also {Wild_LIFE}.
["Is There a Meaning to LIFE?", H. Ait-Kacy et al, Intl Conf
on Logic Prog, 1991].
[{Jargon File}]
(1995-04-21)
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
life
The opposite of {Usenet}. As in "{Get a life!}"
[{Jargon File}]
(1995-04-21)
From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:
Life
generally of physical life (Gen. 2:7; Luke 16:25, etc.); also
used figuratively (1) for immortality (Heb. 7:16); (2) conduct
or manner of life (Rom. 6:4); (3) spiritual life or salvation
(John 3:16, 17, 18, 36); (4) eternal life (Matt. 19:16, 17; John
3:15); of God and Christ as the absolute source and cause of all
life (John 1:4; 5:26, 39; 11:25; 12:50).
From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:
LIFE. The aggregate of the animal functions which resist death. Bichat.
2. The state of animated beings, while they possess the power of
feeling and motion. It commences in contemplation of law generally as soon
as the infant is able to stir in the mother's womb; 1 Bl. Com. 129; 3 Inst.
50; Wood's Inst. 11; and ceases at death. Lawyers and legislators are not,
however, the best physiologists, and it may be justly suspected that in fact
life commences before the mother can perceive any motion of the foetus. 1
Beck's Med. Jur. 291.
3. For many purposes, however, life is considered as begun from the
moment of conception in ventre sa mere. Vide Foetus. But in order to acquire
and transfer civil rights the child must be born alive. Whether a child is
born alive, is to be ascertained from certain signs which are always
attendant upon life. The fact of the child's crying is the most certain.
There may be a certain motion in a new born infant which may last even for
hours, and yet there may not be complete life. It seems that in order to
commence life the child must be born with the ability to breathe, and must
actually have breathed. 1 Briand, Med. Leg. 1ere partie, c. 6, art. 1.
4. Life is presumed to continue at least till one hundred years. 9
Mart. Lo. R. 257 See Death; Survivorship.
5. Life is considered by the law of the utmost importance, and its most
anxious care is to protect it. 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 202-3.
From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:
LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live
in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.
The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed;
particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written
at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of
the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of
successful controversy.
"Life's not worth living, and that's the truth,"
Carelessly caroled the golden youth.
In manhood still he maintained that view
And held it more strongly the older he grew.
When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,
"Go fetch me a surgeon at once!" cried he.
Han Soper
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