To survive means to stay alive through difficult or dangerous circumstances. When a hiker gets lost in the wilderness and makes it out safely after three days, she survived. When a plant makes it through a harsh winter, it survived. The word suggests overcoming real challenges or threats that could have ended badly.

Survival often requires resourcefulness and determination. Survivors of shipwrecks in the 1800s might have fashioned rafts from debris and caught rainwater to drink. A family business that survives an economic downturn has found ways to keep operating when other companies failed. Even something as simple as surviving your first day at a new school means you made it through despite feeling nervous or uncertain.

The word can also describe getting through something unpleasant but not truly dangerous. You might joke that you “barely survived” a boring lecture or a terrible movie, meaning it felt endless but wasn't actually threatening. A survivor is someone who has lived through a dangerous situation. Survival is the act or fact of surviving, as in “the survival of the expedition depended on finding fresh water.”

Notice that surviving isn't the same as thriving. Surviving means you made it through, but thriving means you're doing well. A cactus survives in the desert because it's adapted to harsh conditions, but a rosebush thrives in a garden with rich soil and regular watering.