Also 6–7 -all. [f. SURVIVE + -AL 5.]
1. The continuing to live after some event (spec. of the soul after death); remaining alive, living on.
1598. Chapman, Iliad, II. [VII.] 42. I promise thee that yet thy soule shall not descend to fates, So hearde I thy suruiuall cast, by the celestiall states. Ibid. (1615), Odyss., I. 638. The returne of my lou’d Sire, Is past all hope; and should rude Fame inspire … a flattring messenger, With newes of his suruiuall [etc.].
1743. Francis, trans. Hor., Odes, IV. xiii. 27. Ah! tragical survival! She glorious died in beauty’s bloom, While cruel Fate defers thy doom To be the raven’s rival.
1812. Coleridge, Lett., to Wordsworth (1895), 601. More cheerful illustrations of our survival, I have never received, than from the recent study of the instincts of animals.
1818. Colebrooke, Obligations, 88. An assurance of a ship lost or unlost; or benefit of survival of an absent person.
1872. Darwin, Orig. Spec., iv. (ed. 6), 71. If a single individual were born, which varied in some manner, giving it twice as good a chance of life as that of the other individuals, yet the chances would be strongly against its survival.
1908. J. Orr, Resurrect. Jesus, viii. 229. The survival of the soul is not resurrection.
b. Survival of the fittest (Biol.): a phrase used to describe the process of natural selection (q.v., s.v. SELECTION 3 b), expressing the fact that those organisms that are best adapted to their environment continue to live and produce offspring, while those of the same or related species that are less adapted perish.
1864. Spencer, Princ. Biol., § 164. This survival of the fittest, implies multiplication of the fittest. Ibid., § 165. This survival of the fittest … is that which Mr. Darwin has called ‘natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.’
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 843. The theory of descent explains intelligibly how plants have obtained their extraordinarily perfect adaptations for resisting the struggle for existence; this struggle has itself been the means of their obtaining them by the ‘Survival of the Fittest.’
1877. Huxley, Anat. Inv. Anim., 40. The result of the struggle for existence would be the survival of the fittest among an indefinite number of varieties.
2. transf. Continuance after the end or cessation of something else, or after some event; spec. continuance of a custom, observance, etc., after the circumstances or conditions in which it originated or which gave significance to it have passed away.
1820. Coleridge, in Lit. Rem. (1839), IV. 79. The evidence of a future state and the survival of individual consciousness.
1860. A. L. Windsor, Ethica, vii. 359. Though oratory at Rome was naturally more prolific and its chances of survival greater [than in Greece].
1870. Lubbock, Orig. Civiliz., i. (1875), 2. The use of stone knives in certain ceremonies is evidently a case of survival.
1871. Tylor, Prim. Cult., I. 60. We do not hear of it [sc. the spear-thrower] as in practical use at the Conquest, when it had apparently fallen into survival.
1875. Whitney, Life Lang., ix. 156. Cases of survival from former good usage.
attrib. 1897. Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 487. This custom is now getting into the survival form in Libreville and Glass.
1906. C. W. Saleeby, in Fortn. Rev., April, 746. It is the true belief that has the greatest survival-value.
3. (with a and pl.) Something that continues to exist after the cessation of something else, or of other things of the kind; a surviving remnant; spec. applied to a surviving custom, observance, belief, etc. (see 2).
1716. M. Davies, Athen. Brit., II. 164. The … survivals of such old Manuscript-Publications.
1874. L. Morris, Serm. in Stones, iii. What are they But names for that which has no name, Survivals of a vanished day?
1874. Carpenter, Mental Phys., I. ii. (1879), 98. Instincts … which may be presumed to be survivals of those which characterized some lower grade.
1875. Maine, Hist. Instit., i. 14. This ancient written verse is what is now called a survival, descending to the first ages of written composition from the ages when measured rhythm was absolutely essential.
1883. J. Hatton & M. Harvey, Newfoundland, 202. The Esquimaux are looked upon by some recent ethnologists as the ‘survivals’ of the Cave Men of Europe.
1908. R. Bagot, A. Cuthbert, vi. 49. Jane Cuthbert was … a late survival of a type by no means uncommon … in the earlier half of her century.
Hence Survivalist (nonce-wd.), one who holds a theory of survival.
1882. Goldw. Smith, in Pop. Sci. Monthly, XX. 776. When you give a man a lower seat at table, or in an assembly, the survivalist sees in the act a desire to have the force of gravity on your side in the conflict for which everybody is mentally preparing.
