Survival
nounThe state or fact of continuing to live or exist, especially after danger, hardship, or difficulty.
How to spell survival
8 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce survival
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does survival mean?
- nounThe state or fact of continuing to live or exist, especially after danger, hardship, or difficulty.
Survival in a sentence
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The climbers packed extra rations to improve their chance of survival.
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The company's survival depended on winning the new contract.
Where does survival come from?
Language of origin: Latin
This word traces back to the Latin verb supervivere, which literally meant 'to live beyond' or 'to outlive', built from super 'above, beyond' and vivere 'to live'. It passed into Old French as sourvivre and entered English in the late medieval period as the verb 'survive', meaning to remain alive after some danger or after another person. The noun 'survival' was formed in English by adding the suffix -al, and it was in regular use by the 1500s to name the fact or act of continuing to live. The same vivere root that gives us 'live on' also underlies familiar relatives such as 'vivid', 'revive', and 'vivacious'. For spelling, it helps to remember the buried verb 'survive' inside it: the silent 'e' of survive is dropped before -al, and the ending is -al, not -el or -ial.
How the word is built
- surviv- (from Latin supervivere: to outlive)
- -al (noun suffix)
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