Emily Dickinson Lexicon
Definition for Life (-'s, lives)
life (-'s, lives), n. [OE líf, person, body.]
- Experience; mortality.
- State of being alive; ability to move, breathe, and feel.
- Consciousness; existence; Dasein.
- Mortal state; daily existence; day to day affairs.
- Animation; the will to live.
- Vitality; viability; [fig.] sustenance; nourishment; refreshment.
- World; dimension of existence.
- Span; time period.
- Personality; persona; unique character; individual intelligence.
- Domain; realm of action; sphere of influence.
- Support; sustenance; nourishment; positive energy; vital breath; [fig.] love; affection; devotion; nurturing; faithful emotion; [metaphor] poetry; beautiful language.
- Birth; genesis; physical existence.
- Biography; story; narrative; personal history.
- Influence; power; strength; vital force.
- Everyday existence; daily round of activities.
- Infinite existence; eternal capacity for love.
- Action; moral agency.
- Motivation; reason to live; justification for existence.
- Embodiment; incarnation; [fig.] fulfillment; completeness.
- Circumference; atom; living cell; scope of being; [fig.] universe; creation.
- Reality; truth; destiny; [fig.] felicity; the way to happiness; the path to meaningful existence.
- Biosphere; ecosystem; earthly domain; natural system; realm of nature; aspect of creation; season of the year; [fig.] garden; field.
- Manner; living; way of being; mode of existence.
- Potential; fate; range of possibilities.
- Meaningful existence; full potential for feeling, loving, and being.
- Being; individual; person born; living entity; individual creature; [fig.] person born again spiritually.
- Creature; wight; living thing; animate being.
- Deity; God; Divinity; the Creator.
- Phrase. “New life”: resurrection; apocalypse; millennium; Second Coming of the Lord.
- Phrase. “The Dial life”: chronology; clock time; measured period; finite existence; [kenning] mortality; earth life.
- Phrase. “opon my life”: I swear with a solemn oath; (see Hamlet 1.1.170; 4.6.92).
- Phrase. “Life that is”: mortality; present time.
- Phrase. “Life that is to be”: immortality; future time; existence of the soul after death.
- Phrase. “Crown(s) of Life”: heavenly rewards; covenant promises; divine compensations (see James 1:12; Revelation 2:10).
- Phrase. “everlasting life”: eternity; never-ending being; new existence after death.
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