SURVIVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does survive mean? 

• SURVIVE (verb)
  The verb SURVIVE has 4 senses:

1. continue to live and avoid dying

2. continue in existence after (an adversity, etc.)

3. support oneself

4. live longer than

  Familiarity information: SURVIVE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SURVIVE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they survive    ... he / she / it survives   
Past simple: survived   
Past participle: survived   
-ing form: surviving   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Continue to live and avoid dying

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

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

Context example:

One crash victim died, the other lived

"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 2

Meaning:

Continue in existence after (an adversity, etc.)

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

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

Context example:

He survived the cancer against all odds

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)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Support oneself

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

exist; live; subsist; survive

Context example:

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

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 4

Meaning:

Live longer than

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

outlast; outlive; survive

Context example:

She outlived her husband by many years

"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)

 Context examples 

If I were to see my father in one of these dreadful seizures I am convinced that I should never survive it.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Before vaccines, people became immune only by actually getting a disease and surviving it.

(Immunization, NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

A slight fever can make it harder for them to survive.

(Fever, NIH)

The length of time after treatment during which a patient survives with no sign of a particular complication of disease.

(Event-free survival, NCI Thesaurus)

They survive by feeding on human blood.

(Lice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

It did not seem possible that such frail craft could survive such stress of wind and water.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death; though it would seem that memory was not all complete.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The situation where a person has survived a disease for years

(Long Term Survivorship, NCI Thesaurus)

The length of time after treatment for a specific disease during which a patient survives with no sign of the disease.

(Disease-free survival, NCI Dictionary)

In cancer, the length of time after primary treatment for a cancer ends that the patient survives without any signs or symptoms of that cancer.

(DFS, NCI Dictionary)