Other forms: revived, reviving, revives
To revive is to bring back to life, consciousness or popularity. Revive the patient, revive a tradition, revive interest.
In medicine it means restoring consciousness, and revival is the noun. In the arts, to revive a play is to stage it again after years, and a revival is that production. Of an economy or a fashion it means bringing back: revive the high street, a revived interest in vinyl. Note reviving, which describes a drink or a rest that restores you; and revivalist, which is chiefly religious.
1verbreviveTo bring back to life or consciousness.
“The lifeguard revived the boy after pulling him from the bottom of the pool.”
2verbpopularityTo bring back into popularity or use.
“Young bakers are reviving old recipes that their grandparents had forgotten.”
revive is a bringing back to life.
Also accepted in games: resurrect
Latin revivere is re-, again, plus vivere, to live — the same verb as survive, vivid and vital. Reviving something is making it live again, and the word claims nothing less.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷeyh₃- — to live
Latin
revīvere
Old French
revivre — to return to life after death; to rejuvenate, renew
Middle French
revivre
Anglo-Norman
reviver
Middle English
reviven
English, today
revive
Built from
The is derived from Late Middle English reviven, revyven (“to recover from illness; to regain consciousness; to return to life after death; to happen again, recur; to be rejuvenated, renewed; (figurative) to bring back; (alchemy) of a metal: to be restored to its original form”), from Anglo-Norman reviver, revivre (“to return to life after death; to rejuvenate, renew; to make (a law or legal document) valid again”), Middle French revivre, and Old French revivre (“to return to life after death; to rejuvenate, renew”) (modern French revivre), and directly from their Latin revīvere, the of revīvō (“to live again”), from re- + vīvō (“to be alive, survive; to live”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European gʷeyh₃- (“to live”)). The is derived from the verb.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA