Lifetime

How to spell lifetime

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce lifetime

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lifetime mean?

1. nounThe whole duration of a person's life, or the period during which something exists or functions.

Lifetime in a sentence

• She saved patiently over a lifetime to fund her retirement.

• The warranty covers the product for its entire lifetime.

Where does lifetime come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent native English compound, joining 'life' and 'time', both of which descend from Old English. 'Life' comes from Old English 'lif', meaning the condition of being alive, and 'time' from Old English 'tima', meaning a span or period. The two were originally written and spoken as separate words, and for centuries you would find phrases such as 'in his life time' set apart on the page. Over the early modern period the pairing fused into a single solid word, reflecting its settled meaning of the whole duration of a person's or thing's existence. Because both halves are such familiar everyday words, the only real spelling question is whether to write it open, hyphenated, or closed; the modern standard is the single closed form 'lifetime'.

How the word is built

• life (the period of being alive)
• time (a measured span); a closed compound noun