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 der liebe lange Tag (“the livelong day”) and German die liebe lange Nacht (“the livelong night”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪv.lɒŋ/

Adjective

livelong

1. Total, complete, whole.

   I've been working 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!

   • 1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 7:

     […] so they might spend the livelong day as befitteth high holiday, in pleasure and action without care, and thereafter revel in the lofty presence chamber till night grew old with eating and drinking and all delight.

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

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

Related terms

• lifelong

Translations

total, complete, whole

• Russian: це́лый (ru) (célyj), весь (ru) (vesʹ)

Noun

livelong (plural livelongs)

1. Orpine (Hylotelephium telephium syn. Sedum telephium).

Translations

Hylotelephium telephium — see orpine

Anagrams

• long live, loveling