alive
pronunciation
How to pronounce alive in British English:
UK [əˈlaɪv]
How to pronounce alive in American English:
US [əˈlaɪv]
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- Adjective:
- possessing life
- (often followed by `with') full of life and spirit
- having life or vigor or spirit
- (followed by `to' or `of') aware of
- in operation
- (usually followed by `to') showing acute awareness; mentally perceptive
- capable of erupting
Word Origin
- alive
- alive: [OE] Alive comes from the Old English phrase on life, literally ‘on life’. Līfe was the dative case of līf ‘life’; between two vowels f was pronounced /v/ in Old English, hence the distinction in modern English pronunciation between life and alive.=> life
- alive (adj.)
- c. 1200, from Old English on life "in living." The fuller form on live was still current 17c. Alive and kicking "alert, vigorous," attested from 1859; "The allusion is to a child in the womb after quickening" [Farmer]. Used emphatically, especially with man; as in: [A]bout a thousand gentlemen having bought his almanacks for this year, merely to find what he said against me, at every line they read they would lift up their eyes, and cry out betwixt rage and laughter, "they were sure no man alive ever writ such damned stuff as this." [Jonathan Swift, Bickerstaff's Vindication, 1709] Thus abstracted as an expletive, man alive! (1845).
Antonym
Example
- 1. He says he is alive only because he is foreign .
- 2. We are only fully alive when we 're helping others .
- 3. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive .
- 4. You know your history better than any other person alive today .
- 5. He dreams his wife 's alive again .