livelihood

• livelod
• lyuelode [12th-17th c.]
• lyvelod [14th-17th c.]

From Middle English liflode, from Old English līflād (“course of life, conduct”), from līf (“life”) +‎ lād (“course, journey”), later altered under the influence of lively, -hood. Compare life, lode.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪvlɪhʊd/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪvlihʊd/

livelihood (countable and uncountable, plural livelihoods)

1. A means of providing the necessities of life for oneself (for example, a job or income). [from 14^thc.]

   Synonyms: living, subsistence, sustenance

   an independent livelihood; to make / earn / gain a good livelihood

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, V.4:

     But now, when Philtra saw my lands decay / And former livelod fayle, she left me quight […].

   • 1694, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, London: Thomas Bennet, Sermon 2, p. 293,

     […] a Man may as easily know where to find one, to teach him to Debauch, Whore, Game, and Blaspheme, as to teach him to Write, or Cast Accompt: ’Tis their Support, and Business; nay, their very Profession, and Livelihood; getting their Living by those Practices, for which they deserve to forfeit their Lives.

   • 1716, Joseph Addison, The Free-Holder, London: D. Midwinter and J. Tonson, No. 42, Monday May 14, p. 245,

     Trade […] employs Multitudes of Hands both by Sea and Land, and furnishes the poorest of our Fellow-Subjects with the Opportunities of gaining an honest Livelihood.

   • 1865, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, Chapter 1,

     And now he’s dead, and left her a widow, and she is staying here; and we are racking our brains to find out some way of helping her to a livelihood without parting her from her child.

   • 1967, Chaim Potok, The Chosen, New York: Fawcett Crest, 1982, Chapter 1, p. 10,

     [The Orthodox Jewish shopkeepers] could be seen behind their counters, wearing black skullcaps, full beards, and long earlocks, eking out their meager livelihoods and dreaming of Shabbat and festivals when they could close their stores and turn their attention to their prayers, their rabbi, their God.

   • 2013, Matthew Claughton, The Guardian, (letter), 25 April:

     The legal profession believes that client choice is the best way of ensuring standards remain high, because a lawyer's livelihood depends upon their reputation.

2. (now rare) Property which brings in an income; an estate. [from 15^thc.]
   • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Acts V:

     Then sayde Peter: Ananias how is it that satan hath fillen thyne hert, thatt thou shuldest lye unto the holy goost, and kepe awaye parte off the pryce off thy lyvelod […]?

3. (obsolete) Liveliness; appearance of life.
   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act I, Scene 1,

     […] the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek.

4. (obsolete) The course of someone's life; a person's lifetime, or their manner of living; conduct, behaviour. [10^th-17^thc.]
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter iij, in Le Morte Darthur, book I:

     wel said Merlyn I knowe a lord of yours in this land that is a passyng true man & a feithful / & he shal haue the nourysshyng of your child / & his name is sir Ector / & he is a lord of fair lyuelode in many partyes in Englond & walys