different between life vs vitalic

English

Alternative forms

• lyfe (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English lif, lyf, from Old English l?f (“life, existence; life-time”), from Proto-West Germanic *l?b, from Proto-Germanic *l?b? (“life, body”), from *l?ban? (“to remain, stay, be left”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyp-, *lip- (“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

• IPA^(key): /la?f/, enPR: l?f
• Hyphenation: life
• Rhymes: -a?f

Noun

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.
   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.)
5. Existence.

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

   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot, Chapter VI:

     " […] 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.

   • 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.

   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.

      • 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.”

      • 1916, Ezra Meeker, The Busy Life of Eighty-Five Years of Ezra Meeker
   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.

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

   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.
   • 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.
   • 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.
       • 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 the 1860s through at least the 1930s]
       • 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.

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

Synonyms

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

Antonyms

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

Coordinate terms

• (insurance industry): general, health, pensions

Derived terms

Related terms

• alive
• live
• lively

Translations

See life/translations § Noun.

Interjection

life

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

Further reading

• life on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Biological life on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Phenomenological life on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• 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.

Anagrams

• File, file, filé, flie, lief

English

Etymology

vital +? -ic?

Adjective

vitalic (comparative more vitalic, superlative most vitalic)

1. Pertaining to life; vital.