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resilience

rih-ZIL-yuhns /rɪˈzɪljəns/

nounC1GRESATACT

GeneralAcademic

The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

It implies not just surviving a hardship, but 'bouncing back' to your original state.

The story behind the word. From the Latin 're' (back) and 'salire' (to jump or leap). Literally, it means 'to jump back.' It was originally used to describe the way certain materials would return to their shape after being stretched.

Word relationships

fortitude: Fortitude is courage in pain or adversity; resilience is the ability to recover from it.
elasticity: Elasticity is a physical property; resilience is often used metaphorically for character.

fragility: Fragility is the tendency to break easily under pressure, the opposite of resilience.
vulnerability: Vulnerability is being easily hurt, while resilience is being able to recover from being hurt.

Commonly confused with

resistance: Resistance is trying to stop something from happening; resilience is how you handle it after it happens.

Word family

resilient (adjective): Able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.
resiliently (adverb): In a way that shows resilience.

Collocations

emotional resilience
build resilience
remarkable resilience

Example sentences

"His resilience was tested when he was knocked down in the first round but managed to win the fight." Describing a fighter's spirit.
"The resilience of the local community after the flood was truly inspiring to the whole nation." General human spirit.

Memory hook

Resilience is like a rubber band that 'leaps back' into place. Resilience = Leap back.

When not to use

Don't use it for something that is simply 'strong' and doesn't change; it requires the element of recovery.

Fun facts

In ecology, resilience refers to the ability of an ecosystem to maintain its normal patterns of nutrient cycling and biomass production after being subjected to damage.