living

By surface analysis, live +‎ -ing.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪvɪŋ/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪvɪŋ

living

1. present participle and gerund of live

living (not comparable)

1. Having life; alive.

   a living, breathing child

   Respect for the dead does not preclude respect for the living.

   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page ix:

     It is also pertinent to note that the current obvious decline in work on holarctic hepatics most surely reflects a current obsession with cataloging and with nomenclature of the organisms—as divorced from their study as living entities.

2. In use or existing.

   Hunanese is a living language.

   • 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:

     The cab pulled up in front of a tumbledown cheap ‘villa’ in an unfinished cheap neighbourhood, — the whole place a living monument of the defeat of the speculative builder.

3. True to life.

   This is the living image of Fidel Castro.

4. Of rock or stone, existing in its original state and place.
   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     This we followed for about five paces, when it suddenly widened out into a small chamber, about eight feet square, and hewn out of the living rock.

5. Continually updated; not static

   HTML is a living standard.

6. Used as an intensifier.

   He almost beat the living daylights out of me.

• (having life): extant, living, vital; see also Thesaurus:alive
• (existing): extant; See also Thesaurus:existent
• (representing life): lifey, lifelike, limned, lively, naturalistic
• (intensifier): blasted, doggone, stinking; see also Thesaurus:damned

• dead
• nonliving

• long-living
• longest-living

• live, life
• alive

living (countable and uncountable, plural livings)

1. (uncountable) The state of being alive.
2. Financial means; a means of maintaining life; livelihood

   it's a living

   What do you do for a living?

   • 1983 December 10, Jolanta Benal, “The Second Revolution”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 21, page 14:

     Career opportunity […] is the one who never knocks — especially not on the doors of women, who are still hooking, housewifing and hairdressing for their livings.

3. A style of life.

   plain living

   The National Brewing Company declared that the Chesapeake Bay region was the Land of Pleasant Living.

4. (with "the") Those who are alive: living people.

   Synonym: (archaic) quick

   Antonyms: dead; (polite) deceased, departed

   in the land of the living

   Glad to see you're still among the living! [good-humored greeting]

   Some say that the spirits of the departed walk among the living, though most of us do not see them.

5. (canon law) A position in a church (usually the Church of England) that has attached to it a source of income; an ecclesiastical benefice.
   • 1616, Henry Spelman, De Non Temerandis Ecclesijs [Churches Not to Be Violated]. A Tract of the Rights and Respect Due unto Churches. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Iohn Beale, →OCLC, pages 2–3:

     A Rectory or Parſonage, is a Spirituall liuing, compoſed of Land, Tythe, and other Oblations of the people, ſeparate or dedicate to God in any Congregation, for the ſeruice of his Church there, and for the maintenance of the Gouernour or Miniſter thereof, to vvhoſe charge the ſame is committed.

   • 2015, GR Evans, Edward Hicks: Pacifist Bishop at War:

     The patron of the living who had the right to nominate a particular priest might make the choice, but the living was actually granted by the local bishop.

Borrowed from French living or, less plausibly, an independent truncated borrowing from English living room.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪ.vɪŋ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪvɪŋ
• Hyphenation: li‧ving

living m (plural livings)

1. (Belgium) living room

   Synonyms: huiskamer, woonkamer

Borrowed from English living (room).

• IPA^(key): /li.viŋ/

living m (plural livings)

1. living room

• “living”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Pseudo-anglicism, a clipping of English living room.

living m

1. living room

   Synonym: soggiorno

Borrowed from English living-room.

living n (plural livinguri)

1. living room

Unadapted borrowing from English living (room).

• IPA^(key): /ˈlibin/ [ˈli.β̞ĩn]
• Rhymes: -ibin

living m (plural livings)

1. (Argentina, Chile) living room

   Synonym: sala de estar

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

• “living”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28