life of its own

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English edit

Pronunciation edit

  • (file)

Noun edit

a life of its own (plural lives of their own)

  1. (idiomatic) An independent existence with some characteristics of life.
    take on a life of its own
    • 1996, George Steiner, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in the Old Criticism, page 181:
      Sartre rejects the notion that an imagined character possesses, in any rational sense, "a life of its own".
    • 2002, John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information, page 18:
      […], information takes on not only a speed of its own, but a life of its own.
    • 2003, Kristin Hunter Lattany, The Lakestown Rebellion, page 185:
      A massive hangover with a life of its own kept Fess pinned to his bed most of Sunday.

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