Forms: see LIVE v. [f. LIVE v. + -ER1.]
1. One who lives or is alive; a living creature. Now rare. Also, an inhabitant, dweller (chiefly U.S.).
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XII. 132. Lyueres to-forn vs.
1382. Wyclif, Gen. iii. 1. The edder was feller than ony lifers of the erthe. Ibid. (1382), Isa. xxxviii. 11. I shal not see the Lord God in the lond of lyueres.
c. 1400. Apol. Loll., 8. A liuar in þis world.
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. (1546), Ff iij b. She that ouercometh all lyuers, shall be vanquished of the alonely by death.
1592. Warner, Alb. Eng., VIII. xliii. (1612), 206. When as the wandring Scots and Picthts King Marius had subdude, He gave the Liuers dwellings.
1599. Greene, Alphonsus, Wks. (Rtldg.), 234. Thou king of heaven, which … Dost see the secret of each livers heart.
1677. Cary, Chronol., II. ii. III. xiv. 252. They must instantly have been Detected by the present Livers that were upon the Place.
1718. Prior, Power, 47. Try if life be worth the liver’s care.
1747. in Col. Rec. Pennsylv., V. 87. One, John Powle, a Liver on Sasquehanna River.
1817. Keats, ‘I stood tiptoe,’ 117. Dear delight Of this fair world and all its gentle livers.
a. 1845. Hood, Stanzas to T. Woodgate, i. Tom;—are you still within this land Of livers?
1863. D. G. Mitchell, Sev. Stor., My Farm of Edgewood, 289. There is no liver in the country so practical.
b. Qualified by adjs. having advb. force: One who lives (in a specified way, for a long time, etc.).
c. 1375. XI Pains of Hell, 64, in O. E. Misc., 212. Cursid leuers with here cumpers.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Man of Law’s T., 926. So vertuous a lyuere … Ne saugh I neuere as she.
1433. Rolls of Parlt., IV. 447/1. Untrewe lyvers, and poeple withoute conscience.
1476. Paston Lett., III. 166. The lenger lyver of yow bothe.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. xii. 6. The damned ghosts doen often creep Backe to the world, bad livers to torment.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., X. 429. The Turke, and the Irish-man, are the least industrious, and most sluggish liuers vnder the Sunne.
a. 1635. Naunton, Fragm. Reg. (Arb.), 63. As I have placed him last, so was he the last liver of all the Servants of her favour.
1712. Swift, Jrnl. to Stella, 28 April. The Queen is well, but I fear will be no long liver.
1767. T. Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., II. i. 18. A grave man and a good liver.
1836. W. Irving, Astoria, III. 197. Though a loose liver among his guests, the governor was a strict disciplinarian among his men.
1896. A. E. Housman, Shropshire Lad, l. The country for easy livers, The quietest under the sun.
c. [Cf. LIVING vbl. sb.] Good liver: (a) one given to good living; (b) dial. a well-to-do person.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 68 b. The haruest dinners are held by euery wealthy man, or as wee terme it, euery good liuer betweene Michaelmas and Candlemas.
1883. C. H. H., in Cornh. Mag., April. 459. Or it is a group of good-livers round the table of a private house.
2. One who lives a life of pleasure. (Cf. F. viveur.)
1852. R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour (1893), 133. The sixth earl,… having been a ‘liver,’ had run himself aground by his enormous outlay on this Italian structure.
3. dial. The ‘quick’ of the finger-nail. Also Comb. liver-sick, an agnail. (See E. D. D.)
