life cycle

See also: lifecycle

English

Alternative forms

• lifecycle

Etymology

From life +‎ cycle.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪf ˌsaɪ.kəl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

life cycle (plural life cycles)

2. (biology) The course of stages through which an organism passes from fertilized zygote until maturity, reproduction, and death.

   Synonym: biological life

   Meronym: life forms

   • 2013 September-October, Kayri Havens, Sandra Henderson, “Citizen Science Takes Root”, in American Scientist:

     Plants’ life cycles are an attractive subject of study for citizen science because they are relatively easy to discern. In fact, the name for the field in which we work, phenology, literally means “the science of appearance.” The word was coined just a few years after Thoreau made his phenological observations, from the Greek phaino (to show or appear) and logos (to study).

   • 2025 January 28, Jack Guy, “Tiny QR codes help scientists track bee movements”, in CNN‎^[1], archived from the original on 24 March 2025:

     New insights into bee movements and life cycles have been uncovered after researchers tracked the insects using tiny QR codes glued onto their backs.

4. (by extension) The useful life of a product or system; the developmental history of an individual or group in society.
   • 2022 December 15, Samanth Subramanian, “Dismantling Sellafield: the epic task of shutting down a nuclear site”, in The Guardian‎^[2], archived from the original on 22 April 2023:

     Since it began operating in 1950, Sellafield has had different duties. First it manufactured plutonium for nuclear weapons. Then it generated electricity for the National Grid, until 2003. It also carried out years of fuel reprocessing: extracting uranium and plutonium from nuclear fuel rods after they’d ended their life cycles.

Derived terms

• software lifecycle

Descendants

• → Japanese: ライフサイクル (raifusaikuru)

Translations

course of stages through which an organism passes

• Afrikaans: lewensiklus
• Burmese: ဇီဝစက် (my) (jiwa.cak)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 生命週期 / 生命周期 (zh) (shēngmìng zhōuqí)

• Danish: livscyklus
• Dutch: levenscyclus (nl)
• Finnish: elinkaari (fi)
• French: cycle de vie (fr) m
• German: Lebenszyklus (de) m
• Indonesian: daur hidup (id), siklus hidup (id)
• Irish: timthriall na beatha m
• Italian: ciclo di vita m, ciclo vitale m
• Japanese: 生活環 (ja) (せいかつかん, seikatsukan), ライフサイクル (ja) (raifusaikuru)
• Korean: 라이프 사이클 (raipeu saikeul)
• Malay: kitaran hayat
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: livssyklus m

  Nynorsk: livssyklus m

• Persian: چرخه حیات (سالار), دورزیست
• Polish: cykl życia m
• Portuguese: ciclo de vida m
• Romanian: ciclu de viață n
• Russian: жи́зненный цикл m (žíznennyj cikl)
• Spanish: ciclo de vida m, ciclo vital m
• Swedish: livscykel (sv) c
• Tagalog: ikot-buhay
• Turkish: yaşam döngüsü
• Vietnamese: vòng đời

useful life of a product or system; developmental history of an individual or group

• Afrikaans: lewensiklus
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 生命週期 / 生命周期 (zh) (shēngmìng zhōuqī)

• Finnish: elinkaari (fi)
• German: Lebenszyklus (de) m
• Italian: ciclo di vita m, ciclo vitale m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: livssyklus m

  Nynorsk: livssyklus m

• Persian: عمر (fa), طول عمر (fa)
• Portuguese: ciclo de vida m
• Romanian: ciclu de viață n
• Russian: жи́зненный цикл m (žíznennyj cikl)
• Spanish: ciclo de vida m