Live
verbTo be alive, or to make one's home in a particular place.
How to spell live
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce live
What does live mean?
- verbTo be alive, or to make one's home in a particular place.
- adjectiveBroadcast or performed as it happens, or carrying an electric current.
Live in a sentence
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verb
They live in a small flat near the station.
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adjective
The studio aired a live broadcast of the final.
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verb
Most tortoises live far longer than people expect.
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adjective
The electrician warned that the wire was still live.
Where does live come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This word comes from Old English, where two related verbs, libban and lifian, both meant 'to be alive' or 'to have life'. These trace back to a Proto-Germanic root that also gave German leben and Dutch leven, and ultimately to an ancient root meaning 'to remain' or 'to continue', since to live was to keep going. The noun 'life' and the adjective 'alive' grow from exactly the same stem, which is why the family of words clusters so tightly in English. Over time the verb broadened from simply 'being alive' to also mean 'to dwell or reside in a place'. The adjective sense pronounced to rhyme with 'hive' is a much later development, a shortening of 'alive' that emerged around the 1500s and now describes things that are living, energised, or broadcast as they happen.
How the word is built
- live (single root from Old English libban/lifian: to be alive)
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