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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

lifer en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /ˈlaɪfə(ɹ)/
  • (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *leyp- Proto-Germanic *lībanąder. Proto-Germanic *lībą Proto-West Germanic *līb Old English līf Middle English lyf English life Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzios Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Old English -ere Middle English -ere English -er English lifer From life + -er.

Meanings

  1. A prisoner sentenced to life in prison.
  2. A prisoner sentenced to transportation for life.
    • They know what a clever lad he is; he'll be a lifer. They'll make the Artful nothing less than a lifer. 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Oliver Twist; […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC:
  3. A person with a singular career path, especially in the military.
    • "[…]The Top's not a lifer; he's a career Marine. Lifers are a breed. A lifer is anybody who abuses authority he doesn't deserve to have. There are plenty of civilian lifers." 1979, Gustav Hasford, The Short-Timers, New York: Bantam Books, published 1980, →ISBN, page 63:
    • He was a baseball lifer, a seamhead through and through, who just absolutely liked nothing better than sitting down and talking baseball. 2018, Adrian Dater, 100 Things Rockies Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die:
    • LRRP planned to become “career” Army, i.e., a lifer, you kept that quiet. Basic LRRP theology said the Army sucked and that philosophy kept one from going crazy because, at the bottom, nothing about the war seemed to make sense anyway. The LRRP's considered a lifer a loser. Being a lifer implied one had no other options available. Every LRRP had his own stories about back home: about family, friends, lovers, opportunities, dreams and a future. These were mostly fantasy, but […] 2002, Paul Newman, Nine From The Ninth, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 17:
    • In the early years of EMS, the term lifer was an entitlement pinned to anyone who had worked the road for ten years or longer with no real plans of seeking a replacement trade. It was a term that was generally delivered in a respectful and lighthearted teasing manner by someone who by all definitions could have easily been described as a lifer himself—with the exception of one drawback. So far, the crews didn't know anyone who had worked in the field for ten years, much less longer […] 2005, J. M. Coutts, As the Beacon Turns, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 392:
  4. A species seen for the first time by a birder or other naturalist who is keeping a list of all the species they have seen.
    • I saw six species of honeyeaters new to me and went home with 16 lifers and some bad sandfly bites. 2013, Sue Taylor, Best 100 Birdwatching Sites in Australia:
    • It is difficult to classify them precisely, but, in roughly ascending order of productivity, we now recognise the purely chance observer, the locality regulars (now recognising that ‘time in’ eventually equals ‘rarity out’), the ringers (particularly when working in groups), the occasional tally-hunter (most of us, if we are honest), the full-time observatory workers (exhibiting the highest standards of discipline) and the growing group of full-blooded rarity collectors (self-styled ‘twitchers’, covering individually up to 30,000 miles in their annual pursuit of ‘lifers’). 1970, D.I.M. Wallace, “The first ten years of the Rarities Committee”, in British Birds, volume 63, number 3, London, page 124:
    • We have concurred that it was clearly Problema byssus, the byssus skipper: a lifer for me. 2010, Robert Michael Pyle, Mariposa Road: The First Butterfly Big Year, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
lifers Number=Plur lexicographic

Deriveds

nonlifer

Relateds

life list (bird species)

Synonyms

life bird

Translations (22)

sv livstidsfånge (prisoner sentenced to life in prison) · hu életfogytos (prisoner sentenced to life in prison) · de Berufssoldatin (person who makes a career in the military) · sv livstidare (prisoner sentenced to life in prison) · sv trotjänare (person who makes a career in the military) · ca bimbo (bird species) · hu hivatásos katona (person who makes a career in the military) · fi kantapeikko (person who makes a career in the military) · hu továbbszolgáló (person who makes a career in the military) · ja 囚人 (prisoner sentenced to life in prison) · hu zupás (person who makes a career in the military) · ru пожи́зненник (prisoner sentenced to life in prison) · es vidal (prisoner sentenced to life in prison) · fi elis (bird species) · de Lebenslänglicher (prisoner sentenced to life in prison) · fi elinkautisvanki (prisoner sentenced to life in prison) · de Lebenslängliche (prisoner sentenced to life in prison) · fi elämänpinna (bird species) · hu életfogytiglanra ítélt rab (prisoner sentenced to life in prison) · de Berufssoldat (person who makes a career in the military) · fi uusi bongaus (bird species) · ru пожи́зненница (prisoner sentenced to life in prison)