livelong

English

Alternative forms

• live-long

Etymology

From Middle English live long, leve-long, lefe long (as in Alle the lefe longe daye), equivalent to lief +‎ long. Compare Dutch heel den lieven langen dag (“all the livelong day”), German die liebe lange Nacht (“the livelong night”).

Adjective

livelong

1. total, complete, whole

   I've been workin' on the railroad, all the livelong day.

   • a. 1887 (date written), Emily Dickinson, “I'm Nobody! Who are you?”, in Mabel Loomis Todd and T[homas] W[entworth] Higginson, editors, Poems, Second Series, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1891, page 21:

     How dreary to be somebody! / How public, like a frog / To tell your name the livelong day / To an admiring bog!

2. (obsolete) lasting; durable.
   • 1630, John Milton, On Shakespeare

     Thou, in our wonder and astonishment, Thou hast built thyself a live-long monument.

Translations

total, complete, whole

• Russian: це́лый (ru) (célyj), весь (ru) (vesʹ)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Noun

livelong (plural livelongs)

1. the orpine,

Translations

the orpine, Sedum telephium

• Dutch: hemelsleutel (nl)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: ^{(please verify)} за́ячья капу́ста f (zájačʹja kapústa)

Anagrams

• long live, loveling