to live a lie
22
7.2
- idiom
- Informal
:
vivir una mentira
- He finally decided to stop living a lie and be honest about his feelings.
- want to live a lie
- go on living a lie
- keep living a lie
If if, if you're living a lie, that's never healthy.
- If if, if you're living a lie, that's never healthy.
- How do you admit that you've been living a lie?
- And So what Kierkegaard said is that we need to realize that we've been living a, a lie of sorts.
- We often find ourselves living a lie and we don't realize it until our life is crumbling to pieces.
- And if you want to live in the shadow, if you want to stay stuck in that hole, in that square hole, then keep lying to yourself and keep living a lie.
Examples
-
We have been living a lie for 60 years.
Blog text (30) -
No more keeping your head down, living a lie.
-
But in many ways, we're living a lie because we're not who we say we are.
-
No one can live a lie forever, okay?
-
I was living a lie.
-
This is nothing new... we are all living a lie, really.
Blog text (29) -
No one wins when you are living a lie.
Blog text (19) -
You know, it just kills me to see you living a lie.
-
It's complicated, and it can be scary, but it's better than living a lie.
-
It must have been hard living a lie all these years.
Synonyms
∞
1.3
To say something that is not true to trick someone
∞
2.3
To act as if something is true when it is not
215
2.1
Telling something that is not true on purpose
40
7.2
Pretend to feel something, like surprise or interest, to trick other people
26
6.9
To pretend to be someone else to hide the truth
9
9.1
To hide true feelings or intentions by pretending to feel something else
3
9.9
Hiding your true feelings or intentions by pretending
3
9.1
To avoid giving a direct answer to hide the truth
1
9.5
To hide your true feelings or plans with a false expression
1
8.6
Not telling the whole truth to hide facts or avoid blame
1
8.1
To trick someone who trusts you by hiding your real plans to get something for yourself
To pretend to be someone else to trick people
Antonyms
How Authentic
7
3.4
- Informal
22
7.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to act in a way that conceals the truth' is directly and compositionally derivable from 'live' (to conduct one's life) + 'a lie' (a falsehood); together they literally mean to live with a falsehood. This construction has clear cross-linguistic equivalents (e.g. Spanish 'vivir una mentira') and follows ordinary English noun phrase composition, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will very likely infer the intended sense.
Etymology
Live a lie paints a picture of someone who lives each day wearing a lie like a mask, hiding who they really are. So, it means to 'pretend' or to hide the real truth about yourself.