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noun phrase

survival of the fittest

ser-VY-vuhl uv thuh FIT-ist
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Survival of the fittest (noun phrase) means the principle that the organisms best suited to their environment are the ones most likely to live long enough to reproduce and pass on their traits. Example: “Natural selection is often summed up, rather loosely, as survival of the fittest.”

noun phrase
1
The principle that the organisms best suited to their environment are the ones most likely to live long enough to reproduce and pass on their traits.
"Natural selection is often summed up, rather loosely, as survival of the fittest."
"Under survival of the fittest, a trait spreads only if it helps its carriers leave more offspring."
2
figurative A situation in which only the strongest, cleverest or most ruthless competitors last, and the rest are pushed out.
"The first year of trading was survival of the fittest and half the stalls closed."
"In that newsroom it was survival of the fittest, with no training and no safety net."

How to use survival of the fittest

Learner’s notes

In plain EnglishThe creatures best suited to where they live are the ones that go on to have young.

When to use it

Neutral in casual scientific talk, but dated and imprecise in technical biology; often used loosely, and sometimes misused to justify social inequality.

Memory tip

Applying the phrase to human societies is called social Darwinism and is a political argument, not a biological one.

Trace the full origin ↓
Easily confused with
natural selection → social Darwinism →
Common pairings
pure survival of the fittest the law of survival of the fittest
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Can you complete this real example?

Natural selection is often summed up, rather loosely, as _____.

Etymology

Coined by the philosopher Herbert Spencer in Principles of Biology (1864) after reading Darwin, and later adopted by Darwin himself in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species.

Origin: English

Synonyms

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natural selection

Related words

selection natural selection

Frequently asked questions

What does 'fittest' actually mean here?
It means best fitted to the environment, not strongest or healthiest. Fitness in biology is measured by how many surviving offspring an organism leaves, so a small, well-camouflaged animal can be fitter than a large, powerful one.
What is the difference between survival of the fittest and natural selection?
Natural selection is the scientific mechanism: heritable traits that improve reproductive success become more common over generations. 'Survival of the fittest' is a slogan for it, and biologists tend to avoid the phrase because it invites the circular reading that whoever survives must have been the fittest.
Did Darwin invent the phrase?
No. Herbert Spencer coined it, and Darwin only adopted it in a later edition of On the Origin of Species as an alternative wording for natural selection.
What is the meaning of survival of the fittest?
"survival of the fittest" (noun phrase) means the principle that the organisms best suited to their environment are the ones most likely to live long enough to reproduce and pass on their traits.

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