Reviving

How to spell reviving

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce reviving

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reviving mean?

1. verbBringing someone or something back to life, consciousness, strength, or use.

Reviving in a sentence

• The paramedics were reviving the swimmer when the ambulance arrived.

• The council is reviving the old market square with new shops and lighting.

Where does reviving come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle of 'revive', which English took from the Old French 'revivre' in the late 1300s, itself drawn from the Latin 'revivere', meaning 'to live again'. That Latin verb joins the prefix 're-', meaning 'again' or 'back', to 'vivere', meaning 'to live', so the literal sense is simply 'to come back to life'. The same 'vivere' root sits inside a whole family of familiar words, including 'survive', 'vivid', and 'vivacious', all carrying a flavour of life and liveliness. Early uses described bringing a fainted or seemingly dead person back to consciousness, but the meaning soon widened to cover restoring anything fading, from old customs to flagging spirits. The single 'v' in the middle is the usual spelling slip; because the sound repeats, writers sometimes reach for a doubled letter that the word never had.

How the word is built

• re- (again, back)
• viv (Latin vivere: to live)
• -ing (present participle suffix)