- outlive
- outlive, outlast, survive are comparable when they mean to remain in existence longer than another person or thing or after a given experience.Outlive carries a strong implication of a capacity for endurance and is especially appropriate when competition, struggle, or the surmounting of a difficulty is also connoted{
not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme— Shak.
}{the world has outlived much, and will outlive a great deal more— J. R. Lowell
}Outlast differs little from outlive but usually stresses greater length of duration rather than greater capacity for endurance and therefore may be employed when comparison is more important than a suggestion of superiority or when the fact of existing longer is more important than the length of time involved{customs that have long outlasted their usefulness— Inge
}{the sweet sensations of returning health made me happy for a time; but such sensations seldom outlast convalescence— Hudson
}Survive may be used as an intransitive as well as a transitive verb; in general it suggests merely a living or existing longer than another person or thing, or after some event (sometimes implied rather than expressed) which might bring about his or its end{the elder sister survived the younger
}{he is unlikely to survive the operation
}{one in a million of these childish talents survives puberty— Huxley
}{they had at least survived the old year and were alive for the next— Irwin Shaw
}{all called their host "Mr. President." That much sense of the proprieties survived the reek of whiskey— S. H. Adams
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.