resilience
Americannoun
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the power or ability of a material to return to its original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.
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the ability of a person to adjust to or recover readily from illness, adversity, major life changes, etc.; buoyancy.
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the ability of a system or organization to respond to or recover readily from a crisis, disruptive process, etc..
Cities can build resilience to climate change by investing in infrastructure.
noun
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Also: resiliency. the state or quality of being resilient
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ecology the ability of an ecosystem to return to its original state after being disturbed
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physics the amount of potential energy stored in an elastic material when deformed
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of resilience
First recorded in 1620–30; see resili(ent) + -ence
Explanation
Truly, your resilience, or ability to bounce back, is not just admirable, but foolhardy, some might say; who else could have survived an attack by a rabid toucan and then gone on to become a world-renowned bird breeder? The noun resilience stems from the Latin resiliens, “to rebound, recoil.” As a character trait, resilience is a person’s ability to recover quickly from unfortunate circumstances or illness. Runners who fall during a marathon only to pop back up and dash through the finish line show some serious resilience. Or Silly Putty that can stretch and stretch without breaking, and then come back to rest inside its egg-shaped carrying case — that’s resilience, or elasticity, for you.
Vocabulary lists containing resilience
List 3
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Hamilton
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Power Prefix: re-
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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.
“All of us,” Knight said, “have found our own resilience in one way or another.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2026
We showed our resilience and score a couple of good tries and to fight back, reset and go again was what pleased me the most.
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2026
"It is just having those supplies in the house to get you through those moments. So we are having that conversation about resilience."
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2026
At a panel discussion at IT Symposium/Xpo Wednesday, Gartner’s Tina Nunno made clear who the adults in the room are when it comes to building enterprise resilience in the age of AI.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026
He was green, and he overestimated his resilience, but he was sufficiently skilled to last for sixteen weeks on little more than his wits and ten pounds of rice.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
