liv·ing (lĭv́ĭng)

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adjective 

1. Possessing life: famous living painters; transplanted living tissue.
2. In active function or use: a living language.
3. Of persons who are alive: events within living memory.
4. Relating to the routine conduct or maintenance of life: improved living conditions in the city.
5. Full of life, interest, or vitality: made history a living subject.
6. True to life; realistic: the living image of her mother.
7. Informal Used as an intensive: beat the living hell out of his opponent in the boxing match.

noun 

1. The condition or action of maintaining life: the high cost of living.
2. A manner or style of life: preferred plain living.
3. A means of maintaining life; livelihood: made their living by hunting.
4. Chiefly British A church benefice, including the revenue attached to it.

synonyms:

living, alive, live²animate, animated, vital These adjectives mean possessed of or exhibiting life. Living, alive, and live refer principally to organisms that are not dead: living plants; the happiest person alive; a live canary. Animate applies to living animal as distinct from living plant life: Something animate was moving inside the box. Animated suggests renewed life, vigor, or spirit: The argument became very animated. Vital refers to what is characteristic of or necessary to the continuation of life: You must eat to maintain vital energy.

live¹ (lĭv)

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[Middle English liven, from Old English libban, lifian.]

verb: lived, liv·ing, lives. 

intransitive verb 

1. To be alive; exist.
2. To continue to be alive: lived through a bad accident.
3. To support oneself; subsist: living on rice and fish; lives on a small inheritance.
4. To reside; dwell: lives on a farm.
5. To conduct one's life in a particular manner: lived frugally.
6. To pursue a positive, satisfying existence; enjoy life: those who truly live.
7. To remain in human memory: an event that lives on in our minds.

transitive verb 

1. To spend or pass (one's life).
2. To go through; experience: lived a nightmare.
3. To practice in one's life: live one's beliefs.

phrasal verbs

live down

To overcome or reduce the shame of (a misdeed, for example) over a period of time.

live in

To reside in the place where one is employed: household servants who live in.

live out

To live outside one's place of domestic employment: household servants who live out.

live with

To put up with; resign oneself to: disliked the situation but had to live with it.

idioms

live it up

To engage in festive pleasures or extravagances.

live up to

To live or act in accordance with: lived up to their parents' ideals. To prove equal to: a new technology that did not live up to our expectations. To carry out; fulfill: lived up to her end of the bargain.