What is the meaning of surviving?

verb

  • Continue to live through hardship or adversity.
    • usage: "We went without water and food for 3 days"; "These superstitions survive in the backwaters of America"; "The race car driver lived through several very serious accidents"; "how long can a person last without food and water"
  • Continue in existence after (an adversity, etc.. )
    • usage: "He survived the cancer against all odds"
  • Support oneself.
    • usage: "he could barely exist on such a low wage"; "Can you live on $2000 a month in New York City"; "Many people in the world have to subsist on $1 a day"
  • Live longer than.
    • usage: "She outlived her husband by many years"

adjective

  • Still in existence.
    • usage: "the Wollemi pine found in Australia is a surviving specimen of a conifer thought to have been long extinct and therefore known as a living fossil"; "the only surviving frontier blockhouse in Pennsylvania"
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APAWordNet. (2010). surviving. Retrieved September 20, 2026, from http://smartdefine.org/surviving/definitions/1184861
ChicagoWordNet. 2010. "surviving" http://smartdefine.org/surviving/definitions/1184861 (accessed September 20, 2026).
HarvardWordNet 2010, surviving, Smart Define, viewed 20 September, 2026, <http://smartdefine.org/surviving/definitions/1184861>.
MLAWordNet. "surviving" 23 October 2010. Web. 20 September 2026. <http://smartdefine.org/surviving/definitions/1184861>
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