Definitions for half-life

• Definition
• Anagrams (115)

half-life half-life

Spelling: [haf-lahyf, hahf-]

IPA: /ˈhæfˌlaɪf, ˈhɑf-/

Half-Life is a 9 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 10 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 10 points.

You can make 115 anagrams from letters in half-life (-aeffhill).

Definitions for half-life

noun

1. Physics. the time required for one half the atoms of a given amount of a radioactive substance to disintegrate.
2. Also called biological half-life. Pharmacology. the time required for the activity of a substance taken into the body to lose one half its initial effectiveness.
3. Informal. a brief period during which something flourishes before dying out.

Origin of half-life

First recorded in 1905-10; half + life

Examples for half-life

By taking such an attitude to the past we should only fall into the half-will and half-life common to an age of decadence.

The latter has a half-life of only 8.8 minutes and so counting must begin soon after the irradiation.

But the half-life of a piece of hardware is very short these days.

The half-life must find its mate or, after a few brief days, it dies, leaving its line extinct.

She places herself as his equal—as the other half, without which his half-life cannot be complete.

And, finally, Moglaut had warned that the compact power unit pocketed on the left breast had a half-life of only thirteen years.

It is a suppression of the great lower centers, and a living a sort of half-life, almost entirely from the upper centers.

The half-life of a piece of technology these days is very short.

In the compartments on the ceiling, the figures are the size of life—in those round the walls, half-life size.

Now the old problem of half-life is taking its toll, and we cant even hope to keep up with the birth rate any more.