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livelihood

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Etymology and origin of the English word livelihood

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1000 Old English Rule of St Benedict
Inherited from
Old English liflad via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Old English līflād

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈlaɪvlihʊd/[1]
  • US: /ˈlaɪvlihʊd/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English livelode, also liflode,[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English līflād (“course of life, way of life”),[6][3][7][8][9] formed from līf (“life”) and lād (“course, way; maintenance, support”), the ancestors of life and lode.[6][10][3][11] Old High German lībleita (“provisions, means of living”) is a similar formation.[6][12][3] In the 16th century the ending was remodelled by association with lively and with nouns in -hood,[6][10][11][4][13] and Barnhart and Etymonline add the influence of lyvelyhede (“liveliness, vigour”), recorded from the mid-15th century and formed from lyvely and -hede.[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The course of a person's life, lifetime, or way of life and conduct: in the Old English Rule of St Benedict,[6][9] about 1000 according to Barnhart.[2]

Semantic evolution

From "course of life" the word passed to what life is kept up by: a means of living, from about 1300,[6][3] and food or physical sustenance, from about 1325.[6] Bosworth–Toller already notes the Middle English use for "that by which life is supported".[9] Middle English also used it for income or revenue (before 1325 to 1789), and since 1438 it has also meant an estate or inheritance, a sense common in the 15th and 16th centuries.[6] The old sense "course of life" died out in the 17th century.[6][8] The modern spelling is found in the King James Bible of 1611,[2][3] and Johnson (1755), thinking it a corruption of livelode, defined it as "support of life; maintenance; means of living".[14] It is now used especially in earn a livelihood.[6][8]

Timeline

  • c. 1000 – Old English līflād, course of life, conduct (obsolete by 1669).[6][2]
  • c. 1300 – a means of living.[6][3]
  • c. 1325 – food, physical sustenance.[6]
  • before 1325 – income, revenue (obsolete by 1789).[6]
  • 1438 – property yielding an income; an estate.[6]
  • c. 1450 – figurative, spiritual or emotional sustenance.[6]
  • 1611 – the spelling livelihood, in the King James Bible.[2][3]
  • 1755 – Johnson: support of life, maintenance.[14]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A means of supporting oneself; the work or income by which one lives: The drought threatened the farmers' livelihood.[15][4][6]
  2. (obsolete, Old English–1669) The course of one's life; way of life, conduct.[6][8]

Usage notes

A noun of the same spelling, formed from lively and -hood, meant liveliness from 1566; it was common in the 17th century and later only poetic and archaic.[6][8] Fitzedward Hall (1873) described the modern word as "a marriage between the surviving partners": the form of the word meaning liveliness and the sense of livelode.[3] Collins records livelod and livelood as literary forms.[15]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Livelihood.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/livelihood. Accessed 31 Oct. 2026.

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