surviving
surviving is the present participle and gerund of survive.
Meaning of survive
Verb
survive (third-person singular simple present survives, present participle surviving, simple past and past participle survived)
- Of a person, to continue to live; to remain alive.
- Whether by a miracle or by good luck, all twenty passengers survived.
- Of an object or concept, to continue to exist.
- This town has been hit by two hurricanes, but it survives.
- To live past (a life-threatening event)
- Whether by a miracle or by good luck, all twenty passengers survived the crash.
- Synonyms:
- overlive
- To live longer than (someone); to outlive (someone or something); to outlast (something).
- his children survived him; he was survived by his children
- Synonyms:
- overlive
- Antonyms:
- predecease
- 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.
- I just know you'll get through this, because that's what survivors like you do: they not only survive but thrive.
- Of a team, to avoid relegation or demotion to a lower division or league.
- They narrowly survived, but the heat is on.
Adjective
surviving (not comparable)
- Continuing to live or to exist.
- The legacy was divided among the surviving children of the deceased.
Words formed from surviving
Phrases with surviving
Questions about surviving
- What does surviving mean?
- Surviving means continuing to live or to exist.
- What is surviving the present participle and gerund of?
- Surviving is the present participle and gerund of survive.
- What part of speech is surviving?
- Surviving is an adjective.
Words near surviving in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: surviving (page history and authors); survive (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “surviving.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/surviving. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
