Meaning & use
resiliency
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Meanings
noununcountable
The ability to recover quickly from difficulties, stress, or damage and return to a normal state.
Grammar: No plural; the far more common synonym resilience is usually preferred in careful writing.
Patterns
- show resiliency
- build resiliency
- resiliency in the face of something
Her resiliency helped her rebuild after losing the job.
Communities showed great resiliency after the flood.
Coaches work to build resiliency in young athletes.
noununcountabletechnical
The ability of a material to bend or change shape under pressure and then return to its original form.
Grammar: No plural; used in technical contexts about materials and engineering.
Patterns
- the resiliency of a material
- test the resiliency
- resiliency under pressure
The resiliency of the rubber lets the sole spring back after each step.
Engineers tested the resiliency of the foam under repeated loads.
This alloy keeps its resiliency at very low temperatures.
Common combinations
- show resiliency
- The small business showed resiliency during the recession.
- build resiliency
- The program aims to build resiliency in first-year students.
- emotional resiliency
- Regular sleep supports emotional resiliency under pressure.
- resiliency under stress
- The material keeps its resiliency under stress for years.
Synonyms and how they differ
- resilience
- Means the same thing but is much more common in academic and professional writing.
- toughness
- Suggests strength that resists damage, while resiliency stresses bouncing back afterward.
- flexibility
- Means bending easily; resiliency adds the idea of returning to shape, not just bending.
Opposites
Word family
- resilient adjective
- Able to recover quickly from difficulty.
- resiliently adverb
- In a way that shows recovery from difficulty.
- resilience noun
- The more common noun form with the same meaning.
Commonly confused: resiliency or resistance?
resiliency vs resistance
Resistance is opposition or the refusal to be affected, while resiliency is the power to recover after being affected.
Practice
Because resiliency and resilience mean the same, which is the safer choice for a formal academic essay?
Choose one answer.
Resilience is the standard, far more common form in careful writing, so it is the safer choice. Resiliency is acceptable but less common, while resistancy and reliance are different words.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “resiliency”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.