life-style

life·style also life-style or life style  (lfstl)

n.

A way of life or style of living that reflects the attitudes and values of a person or group: "It was a millionaire's lifestyle on the pocketbook of a hairdresser" (People).

Usage Note: When lifestyle became popular a generation ago, a number of critics objected to it as voguish and superficial, perhaps because it appeared to elevate habits of consumption, dress, and recreation to categories in a system of social classification. Nonetheless, the word has proved durable and useful, if only because such categories do in fact figure importantly in the schemes that Americans commonly invoke when explaining social values and behavior, as in Rachel Brownstein's remark that "an anticonventional lifestyle is no sure sign of feminist politics, or indeed, of any politics at all." Fifty-three percent of the Usage Panel accepts the word in Bohemian attitudes toward conventional society have been outstripped and outdated by the lifestyles of millions of young people. An even greater numberfully 70 percentaccepts the word in Salaries in the Bay Area may be higher, but it may cost employees as much as 30 percent more to maintain their lifestyles, where the context requires a term that implies categorization based on habits of consumption.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

life-style - a manner of living that reflects the person's values and attitudes life style, lifestyle, modus vivendi fashion, manner, mode, style, way - how something is done or how it happens; "her dignified manner"; "his rapid manner of talking"; "their nomadic mode of existence"; "in the characteristic New York style"; "a lonely way of life"; "in an abrasive fashion" fast lane - a hectic and pressured lifestyle often characterized by recklessness or dissipation; "life in fashion's fast lane has taught her a lot" free living - a lifestyle given to easy indulgence of the appetites vanity fair - a vain and frivolous lifestyle especially in large cities