Resilient means being able to bounce back after something difficult or stressful, or for a material, to spring back into shape after being bent or pressed.

Core meaning

  • In everyday life, a resilient person recovers or adjusts quickly after problems, stress, or setbacks.
  • In a physical sense, a resilient material returns to its original shape after being stretched, bent, or compressed.

If you lose a job, struggle, learn, and eventually find your feet again, people might say you’re resilient.

Simple examples

  • Someone who goes through a breakup, feels hurt, but gradually heals and builds a good life again is resilient.
  • Rubber that bends and then snaps back into place is a resilient material.

Extra nuance

  • Psychologists use resilience to describe how people adapt well in the face of trauma, tragedy, or stress, not by “never suffering,” but by finding ways to cope and move forward.
  • The word comes from Latin meaning “to leap back,” which fits the idea of recovering or bouncing back.

TL;DR: Resilient = able to bounce back—people from problems, materials from pressure.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.