different between love vs life

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /l?v/, [??v]
• (Northern England, Ireland) IPA^(key): /l?v/
• Rhymes: -?v

Etymology 1

From Middle English love, luve, from Old English lufu, from Proto-Germanic *lub?, from Proto-Indo-European *lewb?- (“love, care, desire”).

The closing-of-a-letter sense is presumably a truncation of With love or the like.

The verb is from Middle English loven, lovien, from Old English lufian (“to love”), from the noun lufu (“love”), see above.

Eclipsed non-native English amour (“love”), borrowed from French amour (“love”).

Noun

love (countable and uncountable, plural loves)

1. (uncountable) Strong affection.
   1. A profound and caring affection towards someone.
      • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost:

        He on his side / Leaning half-raised, with looks of cordial love / Hung over her enamoured.

      • 2014, S. Hidden, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Mystical Perspectives on the Love of God (?ISBN)
   2. Affectionate, benevolent concern or care for other people or beings, and for their well-being.
      • 1864, Utilitarianism Explained and Exemplified in Moral and Political Government:

        The love of your neighbor as yourself, is expressly given as the definition and test of Charity,—not alms-giving—and this love is [...] the highest of all the Divine commands[.]

   3. A feeling of intense attraction towards someone.
   4. A deep or abiding liking for something; an enthusiasm for something.
      • 2012, Philip Auerswald, The Coming Prosperity (?ISBN):

        For three decades, the average number of miles driven by US motorists increased steadily. Then, in 2007, that steady climb was suddenly halted. [...] What magic caused Americans to temper their longstanding love of the open road?

2. (countable) A person who is the object of romantic feelings; a darling, a sweetheart, a beloved.
   • 1595, Edmund Spenser, Epithalamion

     Open the temple gates unto my love.

   • 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act III Scene 2

     O love, dispatch all business, and be gone!
3. (colloquial, Commonwealth of Nations) A term of friendly address, regardless of feelings.

4. A thing, activity, etc which is the object of one's deep liking or enthusiasm.
   • 1997 March, "Faces of Today's Black Woman", in Ebony, volume 52, number 5, page 96:

     But it wasn't until [Theresa M. Claiborne] went to ROTC training camp at the University of California at Berkeley that she discovered that flying was her first love. "Pilots talk about getting bit by the flying bug," she says. "I thought, This is heaven."

5. (euphemistic) Sexual desire; attachment based on sexual attraction.
   • 2013, Ronald Long, Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods, Routledge (?ISBN), page 3:

     The prospect that their cherished Greeks would have countenanced, much less honored, a love between men that expressed itself carnally, however, was not so easily assimilated.

6. (euphemistic) Sexual activity.
   • 1986, Ben Elton & al., Blackadder II, "Bells":

     —What think you, my lord, of... love?

     —You mean ‘rumpy-pumpy’.

7. An instance or episode of being in love; a love affair.
   • 2014, E. L. Todd, Then Came Absolution (?ISBN):

     Maybe it was just a summer love, something with no future.

8. Used as the closing, before the signature, of a letter, especially between good friends or family members, or by the young.
9. Alternative letter-case form of Love (“personification of love”).
   • c. 1810,, Samuel Johnson (in The Works of Samuel Johnson):

     At busy hearts in vain love's arrows fly; [...]

10. (obsolete) A thin silk material.
    • 1664, Robert Boyle, Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours, […]

      Such a kind of transparency, as that of a Sive, a piece of Cyprus, or a Love-Hood.

11. A climbing plant, Clematis vitalba.

Synonyms

• (darling, sweetheart): baby, darling, lover, pet, sweetheart, honey, love bird; see also Thesaurus:sweetheart
• (term of address): mate, lover, darling, sweetie, sweetheart; see also Thesaurus:lover
• (sexual desire): aphrodisia, carnality; see also Thesaurus:lust
• (sexual activity): coitus, sex, the beast with two backs; see also Thesaurus:copulation
• (instance of being in love): romance

Antonyms

• (strong affection): hate, hatred, angst; malice, spite
• (absence of love): indifference

Translations

See love/translations § Noun.

Verb

love (third-person singular simple present loves, present participle loving, simple past and past participle loved)

1. (usually transitive, sometimes intransitive, stative) To have a strong affection for (someone or something).
   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter VI

     I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her how I loved her, and had taken her hand from the rail and started to draw her toward me when Olson came blundering up on deck with his bedding.

   • 2013 February 26, Pink and Nate Ruess, Just Give Me a Reason:

     Just give me a reason, / just a little bit's enough, / just a second we're not broken, just bent / and we can learn to love again.

2. (transitive) To need, thrive on.

3. (transitive) To be strongly inclined towards something; an emphatic form of like.
4. (usually transitive, sometimes intransitive) To care deeply about, to be dedicated to (someone or something).
   • John 3:16

     For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

   • Matthew: 22:37-38

     You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and your whole mind, and your whole soul; you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
5. (transitive) To derive delight from a fact or situation.

6. (transitive, euphemistic) To have sex with (perhaps from make love).

Conjugation

Synonyms

• (have a strong affection for): adore, cherish; see also Thesaurus:love
• (have sexual intercourse with): enjoy, go to bed with, sleep with; see also Thesaurus:copulate with

Antonyms

• hate, despise

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See love/translations § Verb.

See also

• charity

Etymology 2

From Middle English loven, lovien, from Old English lofian (“to praise, exalt, appraise, value”), from Proto-Germanic *lub?n? (“to praise, vow”), from *lub? (“praise”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewb?- (“to like, love, desire”), *lewb?-.

Verb

love (third-person singular simple present loves, present participle loving, simple past and past participle loved)

1. (transitive, obsolete or Britain dialectal) To praise; commend.
2. (transitive, obsolete or Britain dialectal) To praise as of value; prize; set a price on.

Etymology 3

Said by some to be from the idea that when one does a thing “for love”, that is for no monetary gain, the word “love” implies "nothing". The previously held belief that it originated from the French term l’œuf (“the egg”), due to its shape, is no longer widely accepted, though compare the use of duck (reputed to be short for duck's egg) for a zero score at cricket.

Noun

love (uncountable)

1. (racquet sports, billiards) Zero, no score.

   So that’s fifteen-love to Kournikova.

   • 2013, Paul McNamee, Game Changer: My Tennis Life

     The next day Agassi came back from two sets to love down to beat Courier in five sets.

2. Nothing; no recompense.
   • 1916, H. Rider Haggard, The Ivory Child

     I fought the white man for less than sixpence. I fought him for love, which is nothing at all.

Translations

References

• love at OneLook Dictionary Search
• love in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• love in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• levo, levo-, velo-, vole, voël

Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?l?v?/

Etymology

Borrowed from Romani love.

Noun

love f pl

1. (slang) money

Declension

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Synonyms

• See also prachy

Noun

love m

1. vocative singular of lov

Further reading

• love in Kartotéka Novo?eského lexikálního archivu

Danish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?l??v?/, [?l????], [?l???]

Etymology 1

From Middle Low German l?ve, from Proto-Germanic *galaubô, cognate with German Glaube.

Noun

love c

1. (obsolete) trust, faith

   only in the phrase på tro og love (“solemnly”)

References

• “love,1” in Den Danske Ordbog

Etymology 2

From Old Norse lofa, from Proto-Germanic *(ga)lub?n?, cognate with Swedish lova (“to promise; to praise”), German loben (“to praise”), geloben (“to vow”), Dutch loven (“to praise”).

Verb

love (past tense lovede, past participle lovet)

1. to promise
2. (solemn) to praise

Inflection

References

• “love,2” in Den Danske Ordbog
• “love,3” in Den Danske Ordbog

Etymology 3

See See the etymology of the main entry.

Noun

love c

1. indefinite plural of lov

Dutch

Pronunciation

Verb

love

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of loven

Anagrams

• velo, voel

French

Verb

love

1. inflection of lover:
   1. first-person /third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Anagrams

• vélo, vole, volé

Friulian

Etymology

From Latin lupa, feminine of lupus. Compare Venetian lova, French louve.

Pronunciation

Noun

love f (plural lovis)

1. she-wolf

Related terms

• lôf

Hunsrik

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?lo?v?/

Verb

love

1. to praise

Further reading

• Online Hunsrik Dictionary

Inari Sami

Numeral

love

1. ten

Middle Dutch

Noun

l?ve

1. dative singular of lof

Middle English

Alternative forms

• luve, lufæ, lufe

Etymology

From Old English lufu

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?luv(?)/

Noun

love (plural loves)

1. love

Descendants

• English: love
• Scots: luve, lufe

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Old Norse lofa.

Verb

love (imperative lov, present tense lover, simple past and past participle lova or lovet, present participle lovende)

1. to praise

Verb

love (imperative lov, present tense lover, simple past lova or lovet or lovte or lovde, past participle lova or lovet or lovt or lovd, present participle lovende)

1. to promise

   (as an adjective) det lovede land - the Promised Land

Related terms

• løfte

References

• “love” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

love (present tense lovar or lover, past tense lova or lovde, past participle lova or lovt or lovd, present participle lovande, imperative lov)

1. Alternative form of lova

Noun

love m (definite singular loven, indefinite plural lovar, definite plural lovane)

1. Alternative form of lóve

Anagrams

• vole

Romani

Noun

love

1. plural of lovo
2. money

Descendants

• ? French: lové
• ? Hungarian: lóvé
• ? Romanian: lovea
• ? Russian: ????? (lav??)
• ? Scots: lowie
• ? Serbo-Croatian:
  • Cyrillic: ?????
  • Latin: lóva
• ? Slovak: lóve

Serbo-Croatian

Noun

love (Cyrillic spelling ????)

1. vocative singular of lov

Verb

love (Cyrillic spelling ????)

1. third-person plural present of loviti

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