sur⋅viv⋅al
[ser-vahy-vuh
l] 
| 1. | the act or fact of surviving, esp. under adverse or unusual circumstances. |
| 2. | a person or thing that survives or endures, esp. an ancient custom, observance, belief, or the like. |
| 3. | Anthropology. (no longer in technical use) the persistence of a cultural trait, practice, or the like long after it has lost its original meaning or usefulness. |
| 4. | of, pertaining to, or for use in surviving, esp. under adverse or unusual circumstances: survival techniques. |
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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| sur·viv·al (sər-vī'vəl) n.
|
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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Survival
Sur*viv"al\, n. [From Survive.]1. A living or continuing longer than, or beyond the existence of, another person, thing, or event; an outliving. 2. (Arh[ae]ol. & Ethnol.) Any habit, usage, or belief, remaining from ancient times, the origin of which is often unknown, or imperfectly known. The close bearing of the doctrine of survival on the study of manners and customs. --Tylor. Survival of the fittest. (Biol.) See Natural selection, under Natural.Cite This Source
survival
in cultural anthropology, a cultural phenomenon that originates under one set of conditions and persists in a period when those conditions no longer obtain. The term was first employed by the British anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor in his Primitive Culture (1871). Tylor believed that seemingly irrational customs and beliefs, such as peasant superstitions, were vestiges of earlier rational practices. He distinguished between continuing customs that maintained their function or meaning and those that had lost their utility and were further thought to be poorly integrated with the rest of culture. The latter he termed survivals.
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