lifelore

• life-lore, life lore

From life +‎ lore (“learning, knowledge”).

lifelore (uncountable)

1. The knowledge of life or life experiences; wisdom.
   • 1891, James Vila Blake, Happiness from Thoughts and other Sermons:

     For who is he that shall hinder thee from being good and simple?" Full of high and pure religious thoughts and beautiful lifelore is this sage, [...]

   • 1981, Ca. Vē Cuppiramaṇiyan̲, Shanmuga Velayutham Subramanian, Na Kaṭikācalam, Literary heritage of the Tamils:

     The heritage of a language lies in its lifelore and literature.

   • 1989, Garrison Keillor, We are still married:

     Friends also were supposed to organize the Celebration, which would be "a free-form coming-together (non-sorrowing) of Survivors to share music, games, food, history, personhood — to exchange tokens, totems, lifelore, etc."

2. (sciences, archaic) The study of life; biology.
   • 1889, Life Lore, volume 1, page 110:

     The students of Biology, or, in simple English, of "Life-Lore,” will find matter of the highest interest in many of the papers read at the recent meetings of the British Medical Association at Glasgow.

   • 1899, John Arthur Thomson, The Science of Life:

     If we use the term Biology, in its widest sense of Life-lore, to include all the results of the scientific study of living creatures, we must admit that it had its foundations in antiquity.

   • 1907, Nelson's Encyclopaedia, volume 2, page 94:

     Biology. This term, which literally means 'life-lore,' was first used by Lamarck in a work which appeared in 1801; and it was also used in the following year, to all appearance, independently, by Treviranus.

   • 1909, John Bretland Farmer, The book of nature study: Volume 1:

     It may be useful to teachers to point out that the naturalist asks four chief questions — the answers to which, all very imperfect, are unified into a science of lifelore or biology.

   • 2010, Lun, Wars of Times: The Gods of Time:

     You dizzy little girl. How can you even stand before me and pretend to know anything about Lifelore?” asked Uncle Ap Oka, referring to the art of creating life.

   • 2022, ‎Henry W. Ruoff, The Circle of Knowledge:

     All living things are termed organisms, and the science which takes account of them with special regard to their common characteristics is termed Biology, or Life-lore.