Life cycle means the stages a living thing goes through during its life.

In some cases the process is slow, and the changes are gradual. Humans have various
stages of growth during their lives, such as zygote, embryo, child and adult. The
change from a child to an adult is slow and continuous. In many societies it is
marked by ceremonies at puberty.

In most insects the transition is sharp and well-defined: egg > larva > pupa >
imago (adult).

Different generations have different forms

In some animals, the parent generation looks different from the child. The most
common case is that there are two different forms. One form will have sexual
reproduction, the others might not reproduce, or might reproduce asexually.

Some plants and a few other organisms have a system called alternation of
generations which is not quite the same because one form is haploid and the other
is dipoid.

Parasites
Parasites are organisms that benefit from harming other organisms. The organism
they profit from is usually called host. Many parasites have complex life cycles,
where they need different hosts for different stages of their development. As an
example, the cycle egg > snail host > mammal host is common for parasites of
herbivorous mammals. Malaria is caused by single-celled parasites. These parasites
go through two stages in their development. One stage is in the blood of
mosquitoes, the other in the blood of humans.

Cnidaria
Examples of this can also be found in the Cnidaria. These animals live in the sea
or in freshwater and the structure of most is relatively simple. Some live as
single animals, others form colonies. In a colony, many animals live together.
Often, each animal in a colony is specialized, and needs the other animals of the
colony to survive.

Complete cycle
A well-known example where different generations have different forms is the
jellyfish. It has two:

One is called medusa: it reproduces sexually, and is what most people associate
with the word jellyfish.Very ofen the medusa is free-floating.
The other form is called polyp. It does not reproduce sexually, and is usually
sessile. Polyps are generally attached to the sea floor or another hard surface in
the water. Coral reefs are colonies of polyps.
In a complete cycle, the offspring of a medusa will develop into a polyp, and the
offspring of a polyp will be a medusa.