ETYM as. lîf; akin to Dutch lijf body, German leib body, Mid. High Germ. lîp life, body, Old High Germ. lîb life, Icel. lîf, life, body, Swed. lif, Dan. liv, and Eng. live, v. Related to Live, Alive.
(Irregular plural: lives).
1. A characteristic state or mode of living.
2. The course of existence of an individual; the actions and events that occur in living.
3. The experience of living; the course of human events and activities; SYN. living.
4. The organic phenomenon that distinguishes living organisms from nonliving ones.
5. The period between birth and the present time.
6. The period from the present until death.
7. The period during which something is functional (as between birth and death); SYN. lifetime, lifespan.
8. Living things collectively.
9. A motive for living.
10. A living person.
The ability to grow, reproduce, and respond to such stimuli as light, heat, and sound. It is thought that life on Earth began about 4 billion years ago. Over time, life has evolved from primitive single-celled organisms to complex multicellular ones. The earliest fossil evidence of life is threadlike chains of cells discovered in 1980 in deposits in nw Australia that have been dated as 3.5 billion years old.
Life originated in the primitive oceans. The original atmosphere, 4,000 million years ago, consisted of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water. It has been shown in the laboratory that more complex organic molecules, such as amino acids and nucleotides, can be produced from these ingredients by passing electric sparks through a mixture. It has been suggested that lightning was extremely common in the early atmosphere, and that this combination of conditions could have resulted in the oceans becoming rich in organic molecules, the so-called “primeval soup”. These molecules may then have organised into clusters capable of reproducing and of developing eventually into simple cells.
Once the atmosphere changed to its present composition, life could only be created by living organisms (a process called biogenesis).
It has also been suggested that life could have reached Earth from elsewhere in the universe in the form of complex organic molecules present in meteors or comets. This argument does not really offer an alternative explanation of the origins of life, however, as these primitive life forms must themselves have been created by a similar process.
Us weekly magazine of photo journalism, which recorded us and world events pictorially from 1936–72, 1978-. It was founded by Henry Luce, owner of Time Inc., who bought the title of an older magazine. It ceased publication in 1972, although a few “Special Report” issues occasionally appeared after that date. In 1978 the magazine was revived, issued monthly, focusing more on personalities than on current news.

1. Of or relating to animate being
2. Lifelong
3. Using a living model
4. Of, relating to, or provided by life insurance