[Meaning] protection, and survival of existent things.[1]
'Life' and 'being alive' have many meanings; that is, since there are many powers of the soul in virtue of which being alive is possible, lives [that exist] through those [powers] and [modes of] being alive are many, too. For example, [lives] in accordance with intellect, in accordance with perception, and so forth. That is why, if even one of them belongs to something, what partakes of it is said to be alive. Hence plants, in having a nutritive power, are alive, even though they do not have any of the other [powers], neither the perceptive nor that of moving in accordance with place, or any of the other [powers]. [...] Plants are said to be alive [zh=n], but they are not said to be animals [zw=|a]. For, just as we call 'runners' not those who take part in any kind of race, but those who strongly and more clearly participate in running, so too are called zw=|a ['animals'] not the things taking part in any kind of being alive and life, but those in which zh=n ["being alive"] and zwh/ ["life"] are clearer and more conspicuous.[2]