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to live together

to live together

230 2.7
To share a home with a romantic partner without being married
  • phrasal verb
  • /lɪv təˈɡɛðər/
  • NSFW
translation icon : vivir juntos
  • Nat and Pete live together now.
  • couples living together
  • married or living together
  • live together harmoniously

And so you figure out how to live together like we do.

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Examples

  • So, now we all live together in New York.

  • I want us to live together.

  • Would you say that living together so far has been good?

  • And so you figure out how to live together like we do.

  • And from there you can start to figure out whether living together feels right.

  • So when we were first living together, we were, you know, we used the same shower.

  • Maybe when I get out we can live together again.

  • We had been married ten years and lived together for two before that.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • We decided to share the house, to live together, with no hard rules.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • My partner and I decided to live together after dating for six months.

Synonyms

to shack up
vsto live together
  • NSFW
33 8.2

To live together as a couple without being married

is neutral and formal rather than informal while describing the shared home and sexual relationship
to live in sin
vsto live together
  • NSFW
8 8.4

A couple who live together and have sex without being married, often seen as wrong by some people

is neutral about moral judgment and focuses on shared home and sexual relationship
to cohabitate
vsto live together
4 4.8

To live together in the same home as a couple who are not married

includes the sexual relationship aspect rather than only sharing a home
to cohabit
vsto live together
  • NSFW
3 6.3

To live together as a couple and have sex without being married

is the multiword expression rather than a single-word form

Antonyms

481 2.9

To move apart or stop being together

How Committed

to get married
1.0
to live together
  • NSFW
230 2.7
to date
1.3
to hook up
  • NSFW
132 8.7

Surface Forms

live together infinitive
lived together past participle
living together present participle
lives together third person singular

Morphology

live + together

The core meaning 'to share a home' is directly derivable from combining 'live' (inhabit) with 'together' (in the same place); this simple compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both words will grasp the basic sense. The additional nuance about a sexual relationship or marital status is pragmatic and may not be fully inferred in every context, but it does not make the expression non-compositional.

Etymology

Live together comes from the simple image of two people who live under the same roof and do things together. That's why it means 'share a home and live as a couple without being married'.