noun · academic

resilience

UK/rɪˈzɪljəns/US/rɪˈzɪliəns/re·SIL·ience

Band 7+speakingtask2

the ability of a system, community, or organism to recover after disturbance

Examples

Community resilience after the flood was remarkable; most residents rebuilt within months.

Maintaining biodiversity increases ecosystem resilience to pests and drought.

Policies should aim to improve both resilience and adaptation capacities.

Band 8 sentence

Ecosystem resilience depends on genetic diversity as well as on the scale and frequency of disturbances.

Collocations

  • resilience to climate change
  • community resilience
  • resilience building

Word family

resilient adjresiliency noun (variant)

Common mistakes

This plant is resilience to droughtThis plant is resilient to drought

resistance to changeresilience to change (depends on context)

Say it for a higher band

5toughness6robustness7+resilience

Synonyms

robustness

Easily confused

resistance

Many crops show resistance to pests, but resilience determines how quickly yields recover after an outbreak.

Related words

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In Nature & Animals

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