Idiom
fact of life
Meaning
Something that cannot be avoided; a stark reality of existence.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Traffic jams are just a fact of life in this city.”
“You must accept that making mistakes is a fact of life when you are learning a new language.”
“While the sudden loss of funding was disappointing, the director reminded the staff that budget cuts are an unfortunate fact of life in the non-profit sector.”
Examples
simple
“Traffic jams are just a fact of life in this city.”
contextual
“You must accept that making mistakes is a fact of life when you are learning a new language.”
complex
“While the sudden loss of funding was disappointing, the director reminded the staff that budget cuts are an unfortunate fact of life in the non-profit sector.”
Origin
The term is first recorded c. 1806. It emerged in the early 19th century as a compound of the English nouns fact and life.
Key words
Related idioms
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