Meaning of alive in English

alive

adjective

/əˈlaɪv/ us

/əˈlaɪv/

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B1 [ after verb ]

living, not dead:

alive and well She's alive and well and living in New Zealand.

keep someone alive Doctors kept him alive on a life-support machine.

stay alive The lost hikers were able to stay alive by finding shelter in a cave in the side of the mountain.

He must be 90 if he's still alive.

If something is alive, it continues to exist:

keep something alive Relatives of the missing sailors are struggling to keep their hopes alive.

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She wept for joy when she was told that her husband was still alive.
He was the last person to see the woman alive, and suspicion immediately fell on him.
He could be kept alive artificially, but I think it would be kinder to let nature take its course.
If an avalanche strikes, skiers can be buried alive by snow.
She eats only the bare minimum to stay alive.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Life and living

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Existing and being

Idioms

alive to something
alive with something
be alive and well/kicking
come alive

(Definition of alive from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

alive | American Dictionary

alive

adjective [ not gradable ]

/əˈlɑɪv/

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living; having life; not dead:

I survived the accident with minor injuries, and I was happy to be alive.

Alive can also mean active and energetic or exciting:

The club really comes alive on weekends.

Idiom

alive and well

(Definition of alive from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of alive

alive

The belief in a better and brighter future, and in a history that has a direction is alive and well.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The axis cells are alive, except a part of the epidermis, which is magnified in the inset (cell walls highlighted).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The extraction laws leave alive a cell owning a neighbour alive in the considered direction.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Seedlings that died before the last sampling were considered dead, while those seedlings that survived were recorded as alive.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The remaining 11 seedlings were alive and healthy at the end of the study (> 12 mo).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In this study, different modeling assumptions are made for patients who are alive at the end of the follow-up.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The perfor mance was lovely and loving, full of nuance and color and detail, and rhythmically sensitive and alive.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The donee holds the full bundle of rights, except the right to sell or to give, as long the donor is alive.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Undoubtedly, the reduction of antagonism is a favourable background condition to the agreement, but the conflict, in its political aspect, is still very much alive.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

More than half a century after the cultural battle between artists and bourgeois opened, it was still very much alive in the theatrical milieu.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Thus, the eggs and beetles were classified as alive (viable) or dead, and the data were not amenable to statistical analysis.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In contrast, larvae from control plates remained alive and with vigorous movement throughout the assessment period.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

None of which is to claim that stars are alive, a common misinterpretation of such an eclectic stance.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

If that is so, then nothing can be regarded as intelligent which is not also alive.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Many definitions list reproduction as a key requirement for the system to be alive.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of alive?

Translations of alive

in Chinese (Traditional)

活（著）的, 在世的, 仍然存在的…

Meaning of alive in English

Idioms

alive | American Dictionary

Idiom

Examples of alive

Translations of alive

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