Contextualizebeta

lively

adj
/ˈlaɪv.li/US/ˈlaɪvli/

Etymology

From Middle English lyvely, lifly, from Old English līflīċ (“living, lively, long-lived, necessary to life, vital”), from Proto-West Germanic *lībalīk (“living, lively”), equivalent to life + -ly. Cognate with Scots lively, lifely (“of or pertaining to life, vital, living, life-like”), Old High German līblīh (“living, animated”), German leiblich (“bodily, corporeal”). Doublet of lifely and lifelike.

  1. inherited from *lībalīk✻ — “living, lively”
  2. inherited from līflīċ — “living, lively, long-lived, necessary to life, vital”
  3. inherited from lyvely

Definitions

  1. Full of life

    Full of life; energetic, vivacious.

    • But wherefore comes old Manoa in such haſt, / With youthful ſteps? much livelier then e're while / He ſeems.
    • Since sick people were apt to be present, he could not always depend on a lively young crowd in the same ward with him, and the entertainment was not always good.

  2. Bright, glowing, vivid

    Bright, glowing, vivid; strong, vigorous.

    • The colours of the prism are manifestly more full, intense, and lively that those of natural bodies.
    • His faith must be not only living, but lively too.

  3. Endowed with or manifesting life

    Endowed with or manifesting life; living.

    • c. 1600, Philemon Holland chaplets of gold and silver resembling lively flowers and leaves
  4. ›+ 13 more definitions

    1. Representing life

      Representing life; lifelike.

      • I spied the lively picture of my father.

    2. Airy

      Airy; animated; spirited.

      • From grave to gay, from lively to ſevere, [...]

    3. Fizzy

      Fizzy; foamy; tending to produce a large head in the glass.

    4. Term of address.

      • Speak the word, my livelies, and I'll pilot her in.

    5. Vigorously.

    6. Vibrantly, vividly.

    7. In a lifelike manner.

      • Him to a dainty flowre she did transmew, / Which in that cloth was wrought, as if it liuely grew.

    8. A characteristical surname.

    9. An urban area of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.

    10. An unincorporated community in Benton County, Missouri.

    11. An unincorporated community in Kaufman County, Texas.

    12. An unincorporated community in Lancaster County, Virginia.

    13. An unincorporated community in Fayette County, West Virginia.

The neighborhood

Derived

livelily, liveliness, lively as a grig, livened, look lively, overlively, unlively, step lively, Lively Island

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at lively. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01lively02bright03radiant04radiation05shooting06darting07quick

A definitional loop anchored at lively. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at lively

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA