as I live and breathe

1. For sure, definitely, as in As I live and breathe, I've never seen a more beautiful view. This expression is generally used to emphasize the truth of a statement and has been so used since the mid-1600s, although sometimes it was put simply as as I live. However, the complete phrase was also used early on, as in Arthur Murphy's 1756 play The Apprentice (2:1): “As I live and breathe, we shall both be taken, for heaven's sake let us make our escape.”

Example Sentences

Julia Stiles, as I live and breathe!

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“The single great war of my life has been against fragmentation and for wholeness, against labels and for identity,” he wrote in his 1969 memoir, “As I Live and Breathe.”

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Now, as I live and breathe, this is pleasant: Rose, his man played and sung for him, and he, it seems, did not know when he should give over.

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Father Coughlin, as I live and breathe!

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As I live and breathe and do the bidding of the lords of Florence, the accursed Medici—I have told the truth.

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