Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell survival

hear itsur·viv·al/sər'vaɪvəl/nounSchwa and roots

What it means: The state of continuing to live or exist.

In a sentence: In the wild, animals work hard for their survival.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as servival or survivel.

Same family: surviving, survivor, survived, survivable, survivorship. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Survival” comes from the Latin phrase *super vivere*, meaning “to live beyond” or “to outlive.” It entered English through French in the 1500s and is closely related to “survivor,” literally someone who “lives beyond” a danger or disaster.

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