convalesce
Americanverb (used without object)
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convalesces,
present (3rd person singular)
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convalesced,
past participle, past
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convalescing
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
convalescesimple
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convalescessimple
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have convalescedperfect
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has convalescedperfect
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am convalescingprogressive
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are convalescingprogressive
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is convalescingprogressive
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have been convalescingperfect progressive
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has been convalescingperfect progressive
Past
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convalescedsimple
-
had convalescedperfect
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was convalescingprogressive
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were convalescingprogressive
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had been convalescingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of convalesce
1475–85; < Latin convalēscere to grow fully strong, equivalent to con- con- + valēscere to grow strong ( val ( ēre ) to be well + -escere -esce )
Explanation
Convalesce is a soft-sounding word, and it describes something you should do in a soft bed: recover from an illness. When someone is convalescing, you can be sure something bad happened to them. Maybe they were hit by a car, had a heart attack, or got a bad case of the flu. People convalesce in hospitals, or, if things are a little less serious, at home. A nursing home is sometimes called a "convalescent home," because the old people who live there often have health problems. When you're sick or hurt badly enough to be convalescing, the good news is that you're starting to heal and have time to catch up on books or TV.
Vocabulary lists containing convalesce
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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In the Time of the Butterflies
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Her sister traveled from out of state to help, and once my friend can travel, she will convalesce with her family in another state.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 5, 2026
To convalesce, they stay in this compound, and exercise by walking around its well-ordered clusters of three-story buildings and a synthetic turf avenue with a playground and soccer field.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2024
A volunteer with the group drove the bird to the Tri-State Bird Rescue in Delaware, where the owl continues to convalesce and regain the strength to fly regularly.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 24, 2023
“Being at home, being in this environment, being able to convalesce and get my mind together, it was good.”
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 24, 2023
Ginny Koong’s room was empty because she was downstairs with Dickie in his room, the two of them now recovered enough to convalesce together.
From "Not Nothing" by Gayle Forman
We’re doing this interview over Skype – me in London lockdown, he at his 78-year-old mother’s house in the hills above Los Angeles: he’s looking after her while she convalesces from surgery.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 27, 2020
As Farrell’s character convalesces, it becomes increasingly unclear whether he is manipulating his female caregivers or whether they are playing out their own power games through him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2017
The hospital in which Moose convalesces from his heart attack is “a department store for sadness”; his cough is “small, way short of a proper hack, a kind of diet cough.”
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 14, 2016
Lundqvist is expected to miss at least two more weeks as he convalesces after a vascular injury to his neck.
From New York Times ● Feb. 15, 2015
And since then continually, thanks to God, her Majesty convalesces better and better....
From Mary Queen of Scots 1542-1587 by Various
Their parents and grandparents convalesced there and sometimes died there, cared for by nurses who were part of the community.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 26, 2025
And when he suffered a punctured lung against Manchester United on a tour of the States, he convalesced at the Los Angeles home of McElhenney.
From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2025
The rooftops drew tenants outside with covered porches and reclining seats, on which tuberculosis patients convalesced.
From New York Times ● Jun. 17, 2023
Ranger convalesced in a medical quarantine pool specially designed to increase his eating and weight, while strengthening both his immune system and his bond with human caregivers.
From Seattle Times ● May 12, 2022
For five years now she had convalesced in confinement, but she still had not healed.
From "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill
Robert Dickman, for one, was convalescing at a hospital in Queens.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026
His medical team said all he needed was oxygen, and convalescing there was better than hospital with all its infections.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2025
More than a dozen koalas were convalescing in open-air enclosures, wrapping their woolly arms around the trunks of eucalyptus trees.
From New York Times ● Apr. 15, 2024
Pink needed two surgeries and almost two months of recovery at the same aviary where Blue is convalescing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 23, 2024
And when the baby was cured of the snakebite, it’d still need convalescing.
From "The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage" by Philip Pullman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
