life

I never saw
🪚

this thing before in my life .

If it

would save a
🅰️

woman's life .

" Life attracts life ," the alchemist answered .

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/laɪf/

Inherited from Middle English

Inherited from Old English

Cognate with Scots

Cognate with Northern Frisian

Cognate with Western Frisian

Cognate with Dutch

Cognate with Low German

Cognate with German

Cognate with Danish

Cognate with Norwegian

Cognate with Swedish

Cognate with Icelandic

In summary

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”), Saterland Frisian Lieuw (“body”), West Frisian liif (“body”), Cimbrian laip (“body”), Dutch lijf (“body”) and leven (“life”), German Leib (“body; womb”) and Leben (“life”), Low German Lief (“body; life”), Luxembourgish Leif, Läif (“body”), Vilamovian łaowa (“life”), Yiddish לײַב (layb, “body”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish liv (“life; waist”), Faroese lív (“life”), Icelandic líf (“life”). Related to belive. The sense "biography" is likely a semantic loan from Medieval Latin vīta (“biography; hagiography”).