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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

livelihood.

A means of providing the necessities of life for oneself (for example, a job or income).

10 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈlaɪvlihʊd/Received-Pronunciation/ˈlaɪvlihʊd/US/ˈlaɪvlɪhʉd/Northern-Ireland, Scotland
  1. A means of providing the necessities of life for oneself (for example, a job or income).

    countable · uncountable
    an independent livelihood;  to make / earn / gain / win a good livelihood by the sweat of one's brow
  2. Property which brings in an income; an estate.

    archaic · countable · uncountable
  3. Liveliness; appearance of life.

    countable · obsolete · uncountable
  4. The course of someone's life; a person's lifetime, or their manner of living; conduct, behaviour.

    countable · obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English liflode, from Old English līflād (“course of life, conduct”), from līf (“life”) + lād (“course, journey”), later altered under the influence of lively, -hood. Compare life, lode.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.