LIVE ON

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does live on mean? 

• LIVE ON (verb)
  The verb LIVE ON has 1 sense:

1. continue to live and avoid dying

  Familiarity information: LIVE ON used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LIVE ON (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Continue to live and avoid dying

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

endure; go; hold out; hold up; last; live; live on; survive

Context example:

One crash victim died, the other lived

"Live on" entails doing...:

be; live (have life, be alive)

Verb group:

be; live (have life, be alive)

exist; live; subsist; survive (support oneself)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "live on"):

hold up; hold water; stand up (resist or withstand wear, criticism, etc.)

perennate (survive from season to season, of plants)

live out (live out one's life; live to the end)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

The business is going to live on

 Context examples 

But I live on broken wittles—and I sleep on the coals”—here the waiter burst into tears.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

They were very happy, even after they discovered that they couldn't live on love alone.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Its health depends on the balance between your own cells and the millions of microbes—including bacteria, fungi, and viruses—that live on its surface.

(Skin microbes fairly stable over time, NIH)

How could he live on it?

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

They are young in the ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young men must have something to live on as well as the plain.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

The eggs can live on household surfaces for up to 2 weeks.

(Pinworms, NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

Already they say too much Curupuri live on this place, and they go home.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It’s a double-winged house, and the servants live on one side, the family on the other.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Such gut bacteria comprise a larger community of microorganisms, called the microbiota, that live on or in the human body.

(Whole Grains Deliver on Health Benefits, U.S. Department of Agriculture)