Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell lives

What it means: To make a home in a specific place.

In a sentence: The cat lives in the big, cozy barn. ▶

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as lives' or livs.

Same family: live, living, life, lived, lively. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Lives comes from the Old English verb ‘libban’ or ‘lifian,’ meaning ‘to live,’ and is both the plural of ‘life’ and the third-person singular form of ‘live.’ English is unusual in having the vowel change life → lives (like knife → knives), a pattern that goes back to older Germanic sound changes.

Try spelling it

You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

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