The phrase "devoted a lifetime" is grammatically correct and can be used in written English.
It means that someone has spent a significant amount of time and effort towards a certain cause or goal. Example: She devoted a lifetime to caring for abandoned animals, building a shelter and finding them loving homes.
Romer devoted a lifetime of research to the evolution of the vertebrates, with evidence drawn from comparative anatomy, embryology, and particularly paleontology.
Julien, like Manlius, sees the civilization of Europe to which he has devoted a lifetime of study being swept away by a new barbarism, a new plague.
Indeed, he had "devoted a lifetime to trying to show that humour covers morals, just as, by definition, it is part and parcel of pathos, or sadness".
Suddenly they didn't seem so much like violent revolutionaries anymore; they seemed more like old, weary souls who only crave the respect of the community to which they devoted a lifetime.
Its author, Gilbert Waldbauer, professor emeritus of entomology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has devoted a lifetime to some of the less celebrated varieties of insects in the United States and across the globe.
But it is the photos and stories from Goldblatt's native country, whose scars of violence and oppression he's devoted a lifetime to chronicling, that offer the most riveting testimony.
People devote a lifetime to the quest".
They can have a barbecue on the rooftop and play a part (albeit briefly) in the quest for which, Williamson wrote, locals "devote a lifetime".
As an academic I know that humanities research tends towards extreme specialisation: if you want to be taken seriously it's best to devote a lifetime's study to one particular period or issue, and I suspect women worry about this more than men.
The perfect steak: It's a simple yet elusive goal that some grill masters devote a lifetime to achieving.
Whether they know it or not, readers and lovers of Schulz the world over owe a debt to the Polish poet and writer Jerzy Ficowski, who has devoted a long lifetime to the tracing and collecting of Schulz's letters, stories, drawings and biographical reminiscences about him.
