0 something, especially a way of getting help, that you depend on to lead your life in a satisfactory way: --
1 something, esp. a way of getting help, on which you depend: --
Airplanes are this Alaskan town’s lifeline.
2 something that will help a person, organization, or country to continue to exist or operate in the same way: --
The lifelines for crews in non-commercial vessels are an example.
Collective selling of television rights is the financial lifeline for many clubs that would otherwise be squeezed out by the famous.
Why, then, are lifeline ferries being treated differently to trains, trams and metros?
The only lifeline which then remains is a supplementary and amending budget later on in the year.
Entertaining people was your lifeline.
In particular last year, when there was a breakdown of the peace process, these projects were vital peace lifelines.
In the east, aridity made corn growing and hog rearing increasingly unsustainable activities but wheat now presented a lifeline.
When he denies her a word of recognition, she disappears, as if male speech is her only lifeline to the human world.