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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

survive.

Of a person, to continue to live; to remain alive.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/səˈvaɪv/UK/səˈvʌɪv/UK/sɚˈvaɪv/US
  1. Of a person, to continue to live; to remain alive.

    intransitive
    Whether by a miracle or by good luck, all twenty passengers survived.
  2. Of an object or concept, to continue to exist.

    intransitive
    This town has been hit by two hurricanes, but it survives.
  3. To live past (a life-threatening event)

    transitive
    Whether by a miracle or by good luck, all twenty passengers survived the crash.
    He did not survive the accident.
  4. To live longer than (someone); to outlive (someone or something); to outlast (something).

    transitive
    his children survived him;   he was survived by his children
  5. To be a victim of nonfatal but substantial harm and nonetheless to display the strength to heal; especially, after a crime or an illness, especially sexual or physical abuse or assault, cancer, or a natural disaster.

    intransitive
    I just know you'll get through this, because that's what survivors like you do: they not only survive but thrive.
  6. Of a team, to avoid relegation or demotion to a lower division or league.

    intransitive
    They narrowly survived, but the heat is on.
Where this word comes from

From Anglo-Norman survivre, Old French survivre, from Late Latin supervīvere (“to outlive”), from Latin super (“over”) + vivere (“to live”), akin to vita (“life”). See vivid. Compare devive, revive.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.