Livelong means lasting the entire length of something, especially a day. When someone works “the livelong day,” they've worked from morning until night without stopping. The word emphasizes duration in a slightly poetic or old-fashioned way.

You might find this word in classic songs, poems, or stories. In “I've Been Working on the Railroad,” the lyrics say “I've been working on the railroad all the livelong day,” painting a picture of exhausting, sunup-to-sundown labor. A character in a novel might wait “the livelong night” for news, meaning they stayed awake through every long hour until morning.

Today, we usually just say “all day long” or “the whole day,” but livelong appears often enough in literature, songs, and older writing that it's worth knowing. When you encounter it, imagine someone emphasizing just how long something lasted, adding a touch of weariness or wonder to the description.