liveabilitylivabilityn.
/ˌlɪvəˈbɪlᵻti/, U.S. /ˌlɪvəˈbɪlᵻdi/ 1. Ability to survive; fitness for life.Used chiefly of livestock, esp. poultry, and sperm.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > source or principle of life > [noun] > expectation of life
expectation of life1725
life expectancy1848
life expectation1867
liveability1914
1850 E. Johnson Life, Health, & Dis. iii. 50 Vitality signifies, not life, but livability (if I may coin a word); that is, the aptitude or fitness to live.
1914 Eau Claire (Wisconsin) Leader 3 Feb. 3/2 Sour skim milk has been found to be..absolutely safe from the standpoint of ‘hatchability’ and ‘livability’ of the chicks.
1945 E. J. Perry et al. Artific. Insemination Farm Animals iv. 41 The livability of sperm, i.e. the duration of their motility, is directly related to their fertilizing powers.
1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. Apr. 331/1 This trial..is..a means of measuring the productive powers, the livability, and the quality of pullets intended as breeding stock.
1971 Farmers Weekly 19 Mar. 90/2 What about liveability, egg numbers, egg size and feed conversion?
2008 Animal Reprod. Sci. 104 414 There was a significant decrease in..livability and acrosomal integrity up to 4 h after thawing the frozen sperm.
2. Of a room, house, city, etc.: suitability for habitation; capacity to offer comfortable living. Also, of a region, environment, planet, etc.: capacity to sustain life.
ΘΚΠ
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > [noun] > habitability
habitableness1653
habitability1715
inhabitability1865
inhabitiveness1896
liveability1922
1872 J. Payn Woman's Vengeance II. viii. 162 His private bower..was also oak-panelled, and though a bedroom, had an air of greater comfort and ‘liveability’ about it than its neighbour chamber.
1913 Times 23 Apr. 6/5 (advt.) The comfort and ‘liveability’ which create that ‘atmosphere’ in the home for which we are pre-eminently distinguished.
1922 E. W. Nelson in V. Stefansson Northward Course of Empire p. xviii He [sc. Stefansson] has developed here and elsewhere the story of the ‘livability’ of the Far North, and shown that this hitherto dreaded region offers a welcome.
1945 G. Nelson & H. N. Wright Tomorrow's House vi. 75/2 Soft, general illumination which can give this room the same air of livability as the living-room itself.
1972 Amer. Jrnl. Agric. Econ. 54 882/1 Beginning perhaps in the early or mid-Sixties..there was a nationwide propaganda campaign against air and water pollution and the general degradation of the livability of the earth for mankind and other creatures.
1984 New Yorker 19 Mar. 120/2 The..article's description of housing in Kansas City said that ‘the lovely livability has endured, and not only for the rapidly expanding millionaire class’.
1991 J. Garreau Edge City i. 10 Venice today is venerated by American urban planners as a shrine to livability.
2004 Daily Tel. 17 Nov. 5/3 If no measures were taken to address the issue, he added, ‘we are going to find much more scary things happening in terms of the liveability of the planet’.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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