Microlife
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Microorganisms collectively. uncountable
- 2 A unit of risk representing half an hour change of life expectancy. countable
"If you have unhealthy habits, it costs you microlives. If you smoke, each cigarette reduces your life expectancy on average by around 15 minutes, so two cigarettes loses you a microlife. […] And for every extra 5kg you are overweight, it will cost you around one microlife a day. […] If you survive your trip on the motorbike, then your micromort gets forgotten and you start the next day with a clean slate. But if you smoke and drink all day, and live on a fast-food diet, then your microlives will accumulate from day to day."
Example
More examples"If you have unhealthy habits, it costs you microlives. If you smoke, each cigarette reduces your life expectancy on average by around 15 minutes, so two cigarettes loses you a microlife. […] And for every extra 5kg you are overweight, it will cost you around one microlife a day. […] If you survive your trip on the motorbike, then your micromort gets forgotten and you start the next day with a clean slate. But if you smoke and drink all day, and live on a fast-food diet, then your microlives will accumulate from day to day."
Etymology
From micro- + life.
More for "microlife"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.