living
/ˈlɪvɪŋ/adjective, noun, verb
living is spelled L-I-V-I-N-G. The wrong spelling people search most is liveing: about 20 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026). Living is an adjective meaning “Having life; alive”.
How many letters and syllables are in living?
| Letters | 6: L-I-V-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 200 times per million words; the 505th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, liveing, about 20 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
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 living?
Living is spelled L-I-V-I-N-G. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure.
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 living?
Living appears 200 times per million words in written English, the 505th 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 living?
- /ˈlɪvɪŋ/
Living 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-living.wav, En-us-living.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of living
- livings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does living mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Having life; alive.
a living, breathing child
- 2
In use or existing.
Hunanese is a living language.
- 3
True to life.
This is the living image of Fidel Castro.
- 4
Of rock or stone, existing in its original state and place.
- 5
Continually updated; not static
HTML is a living standard.
- 6
Used as an intensifier.
He almost beat the living daylights out of me.
noun
- 1
The state of being alive.
- 2
Financial means; a means of maintaining life; livelihood
it's a living
- 3
A style of life.
plain living
- 4
Those who are alive: living people.
in the land of the living
- 5
A position in a church (usually the Church of England) that has attached to it a source of income; an ecclesiastical benefice.
verb
- 1
present participle of live
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Living in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | vivant , mode de vie, vie |
| German | lebend , existent , Lebens- , lebensecht , Lebende, Lebender |
| Portuguese | vivo, vivente |
| Spanish | viviente , vivencial |
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 living come from?
From Middle English livynge, libbyng, livinde, livand, livende, libbinde, libbende, from Old English lifiġende, lifiende, libbende, from Proto-West Germanic *libbjandī, from Proto-Germanic *libjandz (“living”), present participle of Proto-Germanic *libjaną (“to live”), equivalent to live + -ing. Cognate with West Frisian libbend (“living”), Dutch levend (“living”), German lebend (“living”), Swedish levande (“living”), Icelandic lifandi (“living”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).