Library / English Dictionary

SURVIVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Support oneself

Example:

Many people in the world have to subsist on $1 a day

Synonyms:

exist; live; subsist; survive

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Verb group:

endure; go; hold out; hold up; last; live; live on; survive (continue to live and avoid dying)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "survive"):

breathe (be alive)

drift; freewheel (live unhurriedly, irresponsibly, or freely)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s on something
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

survival (a state of surviving; remaining alive)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Continue to live and avoid dying

Example:

One crash victim died, the other lived

Synonyms:

endure; go; hold out; hold up; last; live; live on; survive

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

"Survive" entails doing...:

be; live (have life, be alive)

Verb group:

be; live (have life, be alive)

exist; live; subsist; survive (support oneself)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "survive"):

hold up; hold water; stand up (resist or withstand wear, criticism, etc.)

perennate (survive from season to season, of plants)

live out (live out one's life; live to the end)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

The business is going to survive

Derivation:

survival (a state of surviving; remaining alive)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Live longer than

Example:

She outlived her husband by many years

Synonyms:

outlast; outlive; survive

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

"Survive" entails doing...:

be; live (have life, be alive)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Derivation:

survivor (one who outlives another)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Continue in existence after (an adversity, etc.)

Example:

He survived the cancer against all odds

Synonyms:

come through; make it; pull round; pull through; survive

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "survive" is one way to...):

defeat; get the better of; overcome (win a victory over)

"Survive" entails doing...:

convalesce; recover; recuperate (get over an illness or shock)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Antonym:

succumb (be fatally overwhelmed)

Derivation:

survival (a state of surviving; remaining alive)

survivor (one who lives through affliction)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Almost all 68 babies transplanted within the first 3.5 months of life survived, with 64 still alive five years after transplant.

(Early treatment benefits infants with severe combined immunodeficiency, NIH)

If you stop treatment too soon, some bacteria may survive and re-infect you.

(Antibiotics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Mice who received ZIKV survived longer than mice in the control group, and their tumors were significantly smaller than those in the control mice after one week.

(Zika virus selectively infects and kills glioblastoma cells in mice, National Institutes of Health)

Many people with cancer do survive.

(Cancer--Living with Cancer, NIH: National Cancer Institute)

A characteristic or variable that reflects how a patient feels, functions, or survives.

(Clinical Endpoint, NCI Thesaurus)

However, until now, scientists had never found evidence of a surviving giant planet around a white dwarf.

(First Giant Planet around White Dwarf Found, ESO)

All fish need dissolved oxygen, but the biggest species are particularly vulnerable to depleted oxygen levels because they need much more to survive.

(Oceans running out of oxygen at unprecedented rate, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

I never could survive so horrible a misfortune.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Patients who have survived several years

(Long Term Survivor, NCI Thesaurus)

Creatures survive which would otherwise disappear.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)