Definition of resilience
1 : the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2 : an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
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Examples of resilience in a Sentence
… the concert remained a remarkable tribute to Dylan's resilience and continued relevance. —Susan Richardson, Rolling Stone, 15 Dec. 1994
He squeezed the rubber with a clamp and then released it—demonstrating with this painfully simple experiment that the material lost its resilience and therefore its ability to flex rapidly enough to protect the rocket joint from tumultuous hot gases. —James Gleick, New York Times Book Review, 13 Nov. 1988
With amazing resilience the two tribes pulled together and set out to found a new town farther up the river. —Carolyn Gilman, American Indian Art Magazine, Spring 1988
It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even by death, and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment. —Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1897
The rescue workers showed remarkable resilience in dealing with the difficult conditions.
Cold temperatures caused the material to lose resilience.
Recent Examples of resilience from the Web
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For all their resilience, equity investors remain anxious about an economy that has recently given uneven evidence of its vigor just as the Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates.
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Any shift in the refugee relief sector from emergency aid to resilience projects comes as refugees face worsening economic prospects.
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French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed his desire to bolster the euro’s resilience following years of crisis.
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French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed his desire to bolster the euro’s resilience following years of crisis.
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The resilience necessary to advance to state had a bit to do with his time in goal for the Lions.
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Project Hero is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping veterans and first responders affected by posttraumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and injury achieve rehabilitation, recovery and resilience in their daily lives.
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Those sentiments were echoed throughout the day, culminating with Courteeners’ frontman Liam Fray reading out a poem by Ryan Williams paying homage to Manchester and its inhabitants' resilience ahead of his band’s headline set.
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Many of Lowell’s towers endure, beautiful and evocative, in our archives, a testament to that resilience.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'resilience'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Using Resilience Outside of Physics
In physics, resilience is the ability of an elastic material (such as rubber or animal tissue) to absorb energy (such as from a blow) and release that energy as it springs back to its original shape. The recovery that occurs in this phenomenon can be viewed as analogous to a person's ability to bounce back after a jarring setback. Author P. G. Wodehouse took note of this when he wrote: "There is in certain men … a quality of resilience, a sturdy refusal to acknowledge defeat, which aids them as effectively in affairs of the heart as in encounters of a sterner and more practical kind." The word resilience derives from the present participle of the Latin verb resilire, meaning "to jump back" or "to recoil." The base of resilire is salire, a verb meaning "to leap" that also pops up in the etymologies of such sprightly words as sally and somersault.
Origin and Etymology of resilience
see resilient
Other Physics Terms
RESILIENCE Defined for English Language Learners
resilience
playDefinition of resilience for English Language Learners
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: the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens
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: the ability of something to return to its original shape after it has been pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc.
Medical Dictionary
resilience
playMedical Definition of resilience
1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change emotional resilience
Learn More about resilience
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Spanish Central: Translation of resilience Nglish: Translation of resilience for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of resilience for Arabic speakers
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