life
/ˈlaɪ̯f/noun, verb
life is spelled L-I-F-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 776 times per million words in written English, the 137th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “life vs live” about 1,900 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, life means “The state of organisms preceding their death, characterized by biological processes such as metabolism and reproduction and distinguishing them from…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of life is lives.
How many letters and syllables are in life?
| Letters | 4: L-I-F-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 |
| In writing | 776 times per million words; the 137th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is life?
Life appears 776 times per million words in written English, the 137th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce life?
- /ˈlaɪ̯f/
- [ˈlaɪ̯f]
- /ˈlɐɪ̯f/
Life has one syllable.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-life.ogg, En-uk-life.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with life
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with life?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as life.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: file, elif, lief.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of life
- lives plural
- lifes present, singular, he/she/it
- lifing participle, present
- lifed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does life mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
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.
I want my kids to live a good life. He gave up on life.
- 2
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.
- 3
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.
- 4
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.
- 5
A living being; the fact of a particular individual being alive. (Chiefly when indicating individuals were lost (died) or saved.)
Many lives were lost during the war. Her quick thinking saved many dogs' lives.
- 6
Existence.
Life is meaningless and we are all going to die.
- 7
A worthwhile existence.
He gets up early in the morning, works all day long – even on weekends – and hardly sees his family. That's no life! His life was ruined by drugs.
- 8
A particular aspect of existence.
He struggled to balance his family life, social life and work life.
verb
- 1
To replace components whose operational lifetime has expired.
Now, the aim of the design is to extract more cycles from the component under study, at each new engine generation requirements are driving a reduction in the margin for the error, as parts cannot stand any drop in properties. Thus, the lif
interjection
- 1
obsoleteSynonym of God's life (an oath).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Life in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does life come from?
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”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).