lively

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points: 12
Words With Friends: 14
Letters: 6

Pronunciation

/ˈlaɪv.li/

See all 2 pronunciations

/ˈlaɪv.li/ · /ˈlaɪvli/

Definition of lively

16 senses · 4 parts of speech · etymology included

adj

Full of life; energetic, vivacious.

“But wherefore comes old Manoa in such haſt, / With youthful ſteps? much livelier then e're while / He ſeems.”
“[...] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of railway viaducts, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.”
“Since sick people were apt to be present, he could not always depend on a lively young crowd in the same ward with him, and the entertainment was not always good.”
“But with the lively [Giovani] Dos Santos pulling the strings behind strikers [Roman] Pavlyuchenko and [Jermain] Defoe, Spurs controlled the first half without finding the breakthrough their dominance deserved.”

See all 16 definitions

adj

Full of life; energetic, vivacious.

“But wherefore comes old Manoa in such haſt, / With youthful ſteps? much livelier then e're while / He ſeems.”
“[...] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of railway viaducts, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.”
“Since sick people were apt to be present, he could not always depend on a lively young crowd in the same ward with him, and the entertainment was not always good.”
“But with the lively [Giovani] Dos Santos pulling the strings behind strikers [Roman] Pavlyuchenko and [Jermain] Defoe, Spurs controlled the first half without finding the breakthrough their dominance deserved.”
Bright, glowing, vivid; strong, vigorous.

“The colours of the prism are manifestly more full, intense, and lively that those of natural bodies.”
“His faith must be not only living, but lively too.”
(archaic)Endowed with or manifesting life; living.

“c. 1600, Philemon Holland chaplets of gold and silver resembling lively flowers and leaves”
(archaic)Representing life; lifelike.

“I spied the lively picture of my father.”
(archaic)Airy; animated; spirited.

“From grave to gay, from lively to ſevere, [...]”
Fizzy; foamy; tending to produce a large head in the glass.

noun

(informal)Term of address.

“Speak the word, my livelies, and I'll pilot her in.”

adv

Vigorously.
Vibrantly, vividly.
(obsolete)In a lifelike manner.

“Him to a dainty flowre she did transmew, / Which in that cloth was wrought, as if it liuely grew.”
“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 was with divers colours, threw it at the picture […].”

name

A characteristical surname.
An urban area of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
An unincorporated community in Benton County, Missouri.
An unincorporated community in Kaufman County, Texas.
An unincorporated community in Lancaster County, Virginia.
An unincorporated community in Fayette County, West Virginia.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

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.