Survival

//sɚˈvaɪ.vəl// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The fact or act of surviving; continued existence or life. countable, uncountable

    "His survival in the open ocean was a miracle; he had fully expected to die."

  2. 2
    something that survives wordnet
  3. 3
    Of, relating to or aiding survival. countable, uncountable

    "persecution survival plan"

  4. 4
    a natural process resulting in the evolution of organisms best adapted to the environment wordnet
  5. 5
    The avoidance of relegation or demotion to a lower league or division. countable, uncountable

    "[…] a team that have turned snatching relegation from the jaws of top-flight survival into an art form […]"

Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    a state of surviving; remaining alive wordnet
  2. 7
    A custom or belief that persists in folklore from earlier times, when the rationale behind it is forgotten. countable, uncountable

    "Thus, if some old rhyme or saying has in one place a solemn import in philosophy or religion, while elsewhere it lies at the level of the nursery, there is some ground for treating the serious version as the more original, and the playful one as its mere lingering survival."

Synonyms

All synonyms
abidingnessafterglowafterimageageancient manuscriptantique

Example

More examples

"The company is struggling for survival."

Etymology

From survive + -al.

Related phrases

Parfitian survivalmean survival timemedian survival timesurvival analysissurvival bagsurvival biassurvival gamesurvival horrorsurvival instinctsurvival kitsurvival knifesurvival mode

More for "survival"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.