a. Also 6 livesome. [f. LIFE sb. + -SOME.]
† 1. Fraught with life. Obs.
1583. T. Watson, Centurie of Loue, v. O liuesome death, O sweete and pleasant ill.
2. Full of life or animation, lively.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 414/1. Joy is depicted with a lifsome merry aspect.
1797–1809. Coleridge, Three Graves, III. xii. I wish for your sake I could be More lifesome and more gay.
a. 1849. H. Coleridge, Ess. (1851), II. 11. The speeches of Momus … are very witty and lifesome.
Hence Lifesomely adv., Lifesomeness.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 111. A … plastick spring of lifesomness or animality.
1845. Sara Coleridge, Mem. & Lett., I. 321. What he does see clearly he expresses with great energy and lifesomeness. Ibid. (1848), in Q. Rev., March, 430. His latest poems … are not so lifesomely evolved from a central idea as those of his morning and noon-day.
