▪ I. livelong, live-long, n.
(ˈlɪvlɒŋ)
Also 6–7 lib-, lyblong.
[f. live v. + long adv.]
Used as the name of certain plants. Cf. live-for-ever (live v.1 14) and life-everlasting.
1. Sedum Telephium, orpine.
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens i. xxxi. 43 Like the roote of Orpyn or Lyblong. 1579 Langham Gard. Health (1633) 455 Orpin or Liuelong, hath the nature and vertue of Houseleek. 1597 Gerarde Herbal ii. cxxxviii. 417 In English Orpyne; also Liblong, or Liuelong. 1640 Parkinson Theatr. Bot. 726 In English Orpine, and of some Livelong, because a branch of the greene leaves hung up in any place will keepe the verdure a long time. 1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. App. 317 Live-long. Sedum. 1861 Miss Pratt Flower. Pl. II. 325. |
† 2. American Cudweed, Antennaria margaritacea.
| 1597 Gerarde Herbal ii. cxcv. 517 Wherefore our English women haue called it [Gnaphalium] Liuelong, or Liue for euer, which name doth aptly answer his effects. 1656 Parkinson Parad. 375 The Live-long was brought out of the West-Indies, and groweth plentifully in our Gardens. |
▪ II. livelong, a. poet. and rhetorical.
(ˈlɪvlɒŋ)
Forms: 5 lefe, leve longe, 6 leeue long, 6– livelong, 8–9 Sc. lee-lang.
[Originally two words = lief a. and long a.; cf. the corresponding use in G. die liebe lange nacht (lit. ‘the dear long night’): see Grimm s.v. Lieb. In the latter part of the 16th c. the word was apprehended as if f. live v. + long a., and altered in form in accordance with this view.]
1. An emotional intensive of long, used of periods of time. Chiefly in the livelong day, livelong night.
| c 1400 Sowdone Bab. 832 Thus thai hurteled to-gedere Alle the lefe longe daye. c 1450 Lonelich Grail xxxix. 319 Al that leve longe Nyht Into the Se he loked forth Ryht. c 1575 Laneham Let. (1871) 61 Thus haue I told ye most of my trade, al the leeue long daye. 1597 Bp. Hall Sat. iii. vii. 65 He touch't no meat of all this liue-long day. 1602 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass. iii. v. 1462 Where dreary owles do shrike the liue-long night. 1672 Marvell Reh. Transp. i. 263 For though it seems so little a time..it hath been a whole live-long night. 1709 Steele Tatler No. 2 ¶2 Here I sit moping all the live-long Night. 1758 Johnson Idler No. 9 ¶4 Vacant of thought..I indulge the live-long day. 1786 Burns Twa Dogs 295 Or lee-lang nights, wi crabbit leuks, Pore owre the devil's pictur'd beuks. 1787 F. Burney Diary June, This was the last day of freedom for the whole livelong summer. 1806 J. Grahame Birds Scot. 77 The live long summer day She at the house end sits. 1829 Hogg Sheph. Cal. I. 25 He watched there the lee-lang night. 1847 Emerson Poems, Good-bye Wks. (Bohn) I. 416 Where arches green, the live⁓long day, Echo the blackbird's roundelay. 1870 Bryant Iliad I. ii. 35 It ill becomes a chief To sleep the livelong night. |
¶ b. Used by Burns in transposed form.
| 179. Burns Mother's Lament, So I, for my lost darling's sake, Lament the live-day long. |
2. nonce-use. That lives long or endures; lasting.
| 1630 Milton On Shakespear 8 Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thy self a live-long monument. |
¶ 3. Taken as = lifelong. (Prob. meant to be pronounced (laɪv-).)
| 1882 Freeman Reign Will. Rufus II. vii. 453 He lived..to meet with a heavy doom, live-long bonds,..at the hands of his offended cousin and sovereign. |