lifetime
/ˈlaɪf.taɪm/noun
lifetime is spelled L-I-F-E-T-I-M-E. The wrong spelling people search most is liftime: about 50 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 556 of all searches for the word. Lifetime is a noun meaning “The duration of the life of someone or something”. The plural of lifetime is lifetimes.
How many letters and syllables are in lifetime?
| Letters | 8: L-I-F-E-T-I-M-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 25 times per million words; the 3,683rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, liftime, about 50 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; 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).
How do you spell lifetime?
Lifetime is spelled L-I-F-E-T-I-M-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 562 of the searches for lifetime in either form.
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). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is lifetime?
Lifetime appears 25 times per million words in written English, the 3,683rd 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 lifetime?
- /ˈlaɪf.taɪm/
Lifetime has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-lifetime.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with lifetime
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Also written: life-time (one word or two).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of lifetime
- lifetimes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does lifetime mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The duration of the life of someone or something.
a project that will take many human lifetimes to complete
- 2
informalA long period of time.
I've been waiting a lifetime for a train.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Lifetime in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | durée de vie, vie , éternité, cent sept ans |
| German | Leben, Lebensdauer, Lebenszeit , Ewigkeit |
| Portuguese | vida |
| Spanish | vida , eternidad, toda la vida |
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 lifetime come from?
From Middle English lyftyme, equivalent to life + time. Cognate with Icelandic líftími (“lifetime”). Compare also Saterland Frisian Lieuwendstied, Dutch leeftijd and levenstijd, German Low German Levenstied, German Lebenszeit, Danish livstid, Swedish livstid.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).