Word of the Day: resilience

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 10, 2016 is:

resilience • \rih-ZIL-yunss\  • noun

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

Examples:

Terry and Rayanne were proud of their daughter's resilience during her search for a summer job—after being passed over for one positon, she immediately applied to five more.

"Meet three ordinary women who reached the end of their rope. But instead of giving up—after a tough adoption, drug addiction and a financial nightmare—they came back. Not just fighting, but thriving. Their inspiring stories will make you cheer for their resilience and want to learn from their life lessons." — Amanda Robb, Good Housekeeping , April 2014

Did you know?

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 .

Aired August 10, 2016

All Merriam-Webster content is available at www.merriam-webster.com