Basic Details
Word: Lifelong
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Lasting or continuing through the whole of a person's life.
Synonyms: lasting, enduring, permanent, long-lasting
Antonyms: brief, short-lived, temporary
How to Spell Lifelong
Syllables: life - long
Tricky part: Keep the e at the end of life, and write it as one word with no space or hyphen.
Watch out for: liflong, lyfelong
Memory tip: Picture the two words holding hands so tightly that no space can get between them: life + long, with the e of life still in place.
Usage Examples
Example 1: My grandmother's lifelong hobby is growing roses on the terrace.
Example 2: The two scientists met at college and became lifelong friends.
Example 3: Reading every night gave him a lifelong love of stories.
Fun Fact
Goal 4 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals asks countries to offer lifelong learning chances to everyone, not just schooling for children.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Makeup
Only one of these compound words is spelt correctly. Choose it.
Choose the correctly spelt compound word.
a) lifelong
b) wildlyfe
c) hartbeat
d) waterfal
Show answer
a) lifelong. Lifelong joins life and long with nothing dropped; the others should be heartbeat, wildlife and waterfall.
Word Connection
Choose the word opposite in meaning to lifelong as used in the sentence:
Her lifelong passion for cricket began with a plastic bat on the terrace of her house in Pune.
a) permanent
b) enduring
c) brief
d) lasting
Show answer
c) brief. A lifelong passion lasts a whole life; a brief one is over quickly, while the other options mean the same as lifelong.
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the word in the sentence and choose it:
My grandfather kept up a glonfeli friendship with the boy who shared his school bench.
a) lifelong
b) lifelike
c) livelong
d) lifeline
Show answer
a) lifelong. Only lifelong uses exactly these eight letters; lifeline and lifelike have no o or g, and livelong has a v in place of the f.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. A lifelong friend is someone you ____.
a) met only last week at a party
b) have never met face to face
c) see just once every few years
d) stay friends with all your life
Show answer
d) stay friends with all your life
2. Which one is most likely to be lifelong?
a) a summer cold
b) a school holiday
c) a person's love of music
d) a traffic jam
Show answer
c) a person's love of music
