Resilient

How to spell resilient

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce resilient

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does resilient mean?

1. adjectiveAble to recover quickly from difficulty, hardship, or damage, or to spring back into shape after being stretched or bent.

Resilient in a sentence

• The local economy proved remarkably resilient after the factory closures.

• Children can be surprisingly resilient when a family moves to a new city.

Where does resilient come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin verb resilire, meaning literally 'to leap back' or 'to spring back', formed from the prefix re- 'back' and salire 'to leap or jump'. The same salire root sits behind words like 'salient' and 'sally', all carrying the idea of springing or leaping. The present participle resiliens described something that recoils or rebounds, and seventeenth-century English first used resilient in a literal, physical sense for materials that spring back into shape after being bent or compressed. Over time the meaning broadened to people and systems that recover quickly from shock, hardship, or strain. The spelling keeps the single -l- of the Latin salire root, which trips up writers who expect a double letter, and the unstressed second syllable hides the 'i' that the spelling demands.

How the word is built

• re- (back)
• sili- (from salire: to leap or jump)
• -ent (adjective suffix)