Word.ws English Dictionary

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)

  1. (intransitive) Of a person, to continue to live; to remain alive.
    • Whether by a miracle or by good luck, all twenty passengers survived.
  2. (intransitive) Of an object or concept, to continue to exist.
    • This town has been hit by two hurricanes, but it survives.
  3. (transitive) To live past (a life-threatening event)
    • Whether by a miracle or by good luck, all twenty passengers survived the crash.
    Synonyms:
    overlive
  4. (transitive) 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
  5. (intransitive) 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.
  6. (intransitive) 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)

  1. 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

  1. survivers
  2. survives
  3. survivest
  4. surviveth
  5. survivin
  6. surviving
  7. surviving spouse
  8. surviving spouses
  9. survivor
  10. survivor bias
  11. survivor biases

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.