What does resurrecting mean?
Resurrecting is the present-participle and gerund form of the verb resurrect, meaning to bring back to life or restore to active use. Its most traditional sense concerns restoring a dead person or creature to life, as in religious narratives or dramatic accounts of supernatural revival. In modern usage, the verb is frequently figurative: writers say that a film, exhibition, movement, or debate resurrects an old idea or gives a neglected reputation new life. The expression often carries a sense of drama or defiance, suggesting that something thought to be finished or forgotten can return. Resurrecting can also imply restoration after interruption, as when a project or discussion is brought back after a period of inactivity. The word is found in standard British and American English and is especially useful in literary, historical, religious, and figurative contexts.
verb (present participle and gerund)Bringing someone or something back to life, especially after death. In extended use, it means reviving an idea, practice, issue, or reputation that has been forgotten, abandoned, or inactive.
- Bringing a person or animal back to life after death.
- Bringing a person back to consciousness or restoring them to health, especially in figurative or literary contexts.
- Reviving an idea, issue, tradition, reputation, or other thing that has been forgotten, abandoned, or inactive.
"The documentary resurrected a forgotten debate about the nature of artistic responsibility."
"The story imagines a scientist resurrecting a creature from prehistoric times."
"The exhibition resurrects a forgotten chapter of the town's history."
Resurrecting is one word for reviving the dead, but it can also mean bringing an abandoned argument, fashion, or even a forgotten song back into circulation.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does resurrecting come from?
The verb comes ultimately from Latin resurgere, formed from re-, meaning again, and surgere, meaning to rise or leap. English adopted the word through French and earlier English forms associated with rising again or coming back to life. Its development reflects a long religious and literary tradition of describing the return of the dead to life. Related English words include resurgence, resurgent, and surrect, which reflect the same Latin root.
Related word forms
How resurrecting is actually used
The word is relatively formal and often has a dramatic or figurative tone. When used for something other than literal death, it usually suggests deliberate revival of something that had been neglected, suppressed, or considered finished.
Easily confused with resurrecting
Resurgent is normally an adjective describing something that is experiencing a revival, whereas resurrecting is the verb form describing the act of bringing something back.
Resuscitate usually means to restore someone to consciousness or life in an immediate medical situation, while resurrect more often carries the broader and often figurative sense of restoring what has died or disappeared.