Uses of the Concept
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2002) defines resil- ience as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to change or misfortune” (p. 596), and the online, una- bridged American Heritage Dictionary (2005) defines it as “the ability to recover quickly from illness, depres- sion, change, or misfortune; buoyancy; the property of a material that enables it to resume its original shape or position after being bent, stretched, or compressed; elasticity.” WordNet.com, a word defining Web site, adds “the occurrence of rebounding or springing back,” and CancerWEB’s online medical dictionary defines resilience as “energy (per unit of volume) released upon unloading; springiness.” A consistent theme among the dictionary definitions is a sense of recovery and rebounding despite adversity or change.