lively
/ˈlaɪv.li/adjective, noun, adverb
lively is spelled L-I-V-E-L-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is livley: about 260 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 43 of all searches for the word. Lively is an adjective meaning “Full of life; energetic, vivacious”.
How many letters and syllables are in lively?
| Letters | 6: L-I-V-E-L-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 7.2 times per million words; the 8,784th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, livley, about 260 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Same letters |
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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell lively?
Lively is spelled L-I-V-E-L-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 43 of the searches for lively 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 lively?
Lively appears 7.2 times per million words in written English, the 8,784th 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 lively?
- US /ˈlaɪv.li/
Lively 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-lively.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-lively.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with lively?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as lively (/aɪvli/).
Spelled with the same letters in another order: evilly, vilely.
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 lively
- livelier comparative
- liveliest superlative
- lifely
- livelies plural
- more lively comparative
- most lively superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does lively mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Full of life; energetic, vivacious.
- 2
Bright, glowing, vivid; strong, vigorous.
- 3
archaicEndowed with or manifesting life; living.
- 4
archaicRepresenting life; lifelike.
- 5
archaicAiry; animated; spirited.
- 6
Fizzy; foamy; tending to produce a large head in the glass.
noun
- 1
informalTerm of address.
adverb
- 1
Vigorously.
- 2
Vibrantly, vividly.
- 3
obsoleteIn a lifelike manner.
the Painter Protogenes […] having perfected the image of a wearie and panting dog, […] but being unable, as he desired, lively to represent the drivel or slaver of his mouth, vexed against his owne worke, took his spunge, and moist as it wa
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Lively in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | animé |
| German | lebhaft, lebendig, munter, rege |
| Portuguese | animado, borbulhante, efervescente, espevitado, vibrante, vivaz |
| Spanish | brioso, pizpireto, vivo, alacre , vívidamente, vibrantemente |
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 lively come from?
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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).