Dictionary

lifelore en · NOUN

Etymology

From life + lore (“learning, knowledge”).

Meanings

1. (uncountable) The knowledge of life or life experiences; wisdom.
   • For who is he that shall hinder thee from being good and simple?" Full of high and pure religious thoughts and beautiful lifelore is this sage, [...] 1891, James Vila Blake, Happiness from Thoughts and other Sermons:
   • The heritage of a language lies in its lifelore and literature. 1981, Ca. Vē Cuppiramaṇiyan̲, Shanmuga Velayutham Subramanian, Na Kaṭikācalam, Literary heritage of the Tamils:
   • Friends also were supposed to organize the Celebration, which would be "a free-form coming-together (non-sorrowing) of Survivors to share music, games, food, history, personhood — to exchange tokens, totems, lifelore, etc." 1989, Garrison Keillor, We are still married:
2. (qualifier:archaic or puristic, uncountable) The study of life; biology.
   • If we use the term Biology, in its widest sense of Life-lore, to include all the results of the scientific study of living creatures, we must admit that it had its foundations in antiquity. 1899, John Arthur Thomson, The Science of Life:
   • You dizzy little girl. How can you even stand before me and pretend to know anything about Lifelore?” asked Uncle Ap Oka, referring to the art of creating life. 2010, Lun, Wars of Times: The Gods of Time:
   • The students of Biology, or, in simple English, of "Life-Lore,” will find matter of the highest interest in many of the papers read at the recent meetings of the British Medical Association at Glasgow. 1889, Life Lore, volume 1, page 110:
   • It may be useful to teachers to point out that the naturalist asks four chief questions — the answers to which, all very imperfect, are unified into a science of lifelore or biology. 1909, John Bretland Farmer, The book of nature study: Volume 1:
   • All living things are termed organisms, and the science which takes account of them with special regard to their common characteristics is termed Biology, or Life-lore. 2022, Henry W. Ruoff, The Circle of Knowledge:
   • Biology. This term, which literally means 'life-lore,' was first used by Lamarck in a work which appeared in 1801; and it was also used in the following year, to all appearance, independently, by Treviranus. 1907, Nelson's Encyclopaedia, volume 2, page 94:

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