convalesce
Americanverb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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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
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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
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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:
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
My argument is that if you learn this new language of the body and learn how to to be kind to yourself and to convalesce properly, you will convalesce much better.
From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2023
As they convalesce, the children have told relatives harrowing details of their time in the jungle.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 12, 2023
Because of an administrative bungle, some soldiers were left to convalesce in the hospital.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
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
"Should he recover, it will take a month, or, perhaps, two, before he convalesces."
From The Daltons, Volume II (of II) Or,Three Roads In Life by Lever, Charles James
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
Commonly, it’s been the other way around — the women brandishing a gold medal or World Cup crown while the men convalesced.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 2, 2021
He painted it at the Saint-Paul asylum in southern France, where he convalesced.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 12, 2020
She decided, too, that it would be good to perform as she convalesced, even when her stamina was low.
From New York Times ● Dec. 30, 2015
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
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
He handed out plush toys to convalescing children at a medical trauma center.
From New York Times ● Jan. 22, 2024
They take Mom’s Prius, since Dad’s car is still convalescing in the garage.
From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
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.
