reviving

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of revive.

   The festival is reviving traditions that nearly vanished a century ago.

   Conservationists are reviving the wetland by restoring its natural water flow.

   Note

   Two grammars share this spelling. After a form of be it is the participle of a progressive, as in the town is reviving its market. Heading its own phrase it is a gerund, and it still takes a direct object the way the verb does: reviving old customs takes patience. Put the in front and the object needs of, as in the reviving of old customs. At that point the word has become the noun meaning a revival.

   Reviving old customs takes patience and goodwill.

   Reviving the patient took the paramedics ten minutes.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A bringing back to life or activity; a revival.

   The reviving of the dying language took decades of patient effort.

   Doctors credited the swift reviving of the patient to the new procedure.

   Similarrevival, resuscitation, revitalization, restoration

   Note

   A countable noun: it takes a plural, revivings, and one reviving can be a single renewal among several. George Whitefield, writing before 1770, sets the "dreadful decays" of the divine life against "some blessed revivings". Each of those is a fresh return of spiritual vigor. In his usage a reviving answers a decline, and the word is at its most natural paired with the falling-off it reverses.

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