survival

noun

1. 1

   The fact or act of surviving; continued existence or life.

   His survival in the open ocean was a miracle; he had fully expected to die.

2. 2

   Of, relating to or aiding survival.

   persecution survival plan

   His survival kit had all the things he needed in the wilderness.

   When I am not playing pinball or working at my survival job, I am usually writing.

3. 3

   The avoidance of relegation or demotion to a lower league or division.

   […] a team that have turned snatching relegation from the jaws of top-flight survival into an art form […]

   "Before you know it, you find yourself flirting around the relegation places and the season becomes a battle for survival."

4. 4

   A custom or belief that persists in folklore from earlier times, when the rationale behind it is forgotten.

   Thus, if some old rhyme or saying has in one place a solemn import in philosophy or religion, while elsewhere it lies at the level of the nursery, there is some ground for treating the serious version as the more original, and the playful one as its mere lingering survival.

   Another survival of marriage by capture is discovered among the Ceylonese, where it is common at royal marriages for the king and queen to throw perfumed balls and squirt scented water at each other.

   The banded ones were all dressed in white gowns — a gay survival from Old Style days, when cheerfulness and May-time were synonyms — days before the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average.

Forms

plural

survivals