Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Possessing life.
- adjective In active function or use.
- adjective Of persons who are alive.
- adjective Relating to the routine conduct or maintenance of life.
- adjective Full of life, interest, or vitality.
- adjective True to life; realistic.
- adjective Informal Used as an intensive.
- noun The condition or action of maintaining life.
- noun A manner or style of life.
- noun A means of maintaining life; livelihood.
- noun Chiefly British A church benefice, including the revenue attached to it.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Being alive; having life or vitality; not dead: as, a living animal or plant.
- In actual existence; having present vigor or vitality; now in action or use; not lifeless, stagnant, inert, or disused: applied to things: as, living languages; a living spring; living faith.
- Furious; fierce: applied by seamen to a gale: as, a living gale of wind.
- Existing in the original state and place; being as primarily formed and situated: only in the phrases living rock, living stone.
- noun The act or the condition of existing; the state of having life; power of continuing life.
- noun Period of life; term of existence.
- noun Manner or course of life: as, holy living.
- noun Means of subsistence; estate; livelihood.
- noun Specifically— An ecclesiastical office by virtue of which the clerk or incumbent has the right to enjoy certain church revenues on condition of discharging certain services prescribed by the canons, or by usage, or by the conditions under which the office has been founded. (See
induction , 2.) In the reign of Henry VIII. a system of “pluralities” was established, whereby the same clerk might hold two or more livings; but in the reign of Victoria this privilege, which was attended with great abuses, has been repeatedly abridged; and no clerk may now hold two livings unless the churches so attached are within three miles of each other, and the annual value of one of them does not exceed one hundred pounds. - noun (b) The income from a benefice; ecclesiastical revenue.
- noun The seat of the office; a parish.
- noun A farm.
- noun Synonyms living, Livelihood, Subsistence, Sustenance, Support, Maintenance. These words differ essentially, as their derivations suggest. To make a living or a livelihood is to earn enough to keep alive on with economy, not barely enough to maintain life, nor snfficient to live in luxury. Livelihood is a rather flner and less material word than living. Subsistence and sustenance refer entirely to food: subsistence is that which keeps one in existence or animal life; sustenance is that which holds one up. Support and maintenance, like
living and livelihood, cover necessary expenses. To guarantee a man his support is to promise money to cover all expenses proper to economical living, or such living as may be agreed upon. Maintenance may be applied to expensive living. An honest livelihood; a bare living; bare subsistence; scanty sustenance; ample support; an honorable maintenance at the university.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The state of one who, or that which, lives; lives; life; existence.
- noun Manner of life
- noun Means of subsistence; sustenance; estate.
- noun Power of continuing life; the act of living, or living comfortably.
- noun engraving The benefice of a clergyman; an ecclesiastical charge which a minister receives.
- adjective Being alive; having life. Opposed to
dead . - adjective Active; lively; vigorous; -- said esp. of states of the mind, and sometimes of abstract things
- adjective Issuing continually from the earth; running; flowing; ; -- opposed to
stagnant . - adjective Producing life, action, animation, or vigor; quickening.
- adjective Ignited; glowing with heat; burning; live.
- adjective See Vis viva, under
Vis . - adjective (Naut.) a heavy gale.
- adjective rock in its native or original state or location; rock not quarried.
- adjective those who are alive, or one who is alive.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb Present participle of
live . - adjective Having
life . - adjective In use or
existing . - adjective Of
everyday life. - adjective
True to life. - adjective Used as an
intensifier . - noun uncountable The state of being
alive . - noun Financial means; a means of maintaining life;
livelihood - noun A style of life.
- noun canon law A position in a church (usually the Church of England) that has attached to it a source of income. The holder of the position receives its revenue for the performance of stipulated duties.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective still in existence
Etymologies
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Examples
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˜If a predicate is generally true of a genus, then the predicate is also true of any species of that genus™, we can derive the conclusion ˜the capacity of nutrition belongs to plants™ using the premise ˜the capacity of nutrition belongs to all living things™, since ˜living thing™ is the genus of the species ˜plants™.
Aristotle's Rhetoric Rapp, Christof 2002
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We can become so absorbed in making a living that we have no time _for living_.
The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit Ralph Waldo Trine 1912
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And I am fully aware that once we direct our living attention this way, instead of to the absurdity of the atom, then we have a whole _living_ universe of knowledge before us.
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All the machinery of living, and no _living_ -- no good of it all!
What Diantha Did Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1897
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And it'll be so exciting to be living a story instead of reading it -- only when you're _living_ a story you can't peek over to the back to see how it's all coming out.
Mary Marie 1894
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He has rejected experience that he might _be_ his fullest self before living it; and only _living_, in other words, experience, could have made that self complete.
A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) Sutherland Orr 1865
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Thus the proposition, All men are living beings (he would say) is true, because _living being_ is a name of every thing of which _man_ is a name.
A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive John Stuart Mill 1839
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Thus the proposition, All men are living beings (he would say) is true, because _living being_ is a name of everything of which _man_ is a name.
A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive (Vol. 1 of 2) John Stuart Mill 1839
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III. ii.439 (293,5) [to a living humour of madness] If this be the true reading we must by _living_ understand _lasting_, or _permanent_, but I cannot forbear to think that some antithesis was intended which is now lost; perhaps the passage stood thus, _I drove my suitor from a_ dying _humour of love to a living humour of madness_.
Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies Samuel Johnson 1746
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The persons of it are few; the characterization is feeble, compared with that of some of the later plays; but that does not hinder or limit the design, and it is all the more apparent for this artistic poverty, anatomically clear; while as yet that perfection of art in which all trace of the structure came so soon to be lost in the beauty of the illustration, is yet wanting; while as yet that art which made of its living instance an intenser life, or which made with its _living_ art a life more living than life itself, was only germinating.
The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded Delia Bacon 1835
brobbins commented on the word living
recovery, acquisition of knowledge
July 22, 2009
PossibleUnderscore commented on the word living
Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby!
-Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw
August 3, 2009