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. Example: “Natural selection is often summed up, rather loosely, as survival of the fittest.”
How to Use Survival of the fittest
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishThe creatures best suited to where they live are the ones that go on to have young.
Neutral in casual scientific talk, but dated and imprecise in technical biology; often used loosely, and sometimes misused to justify social inequality.
Applying the phrase to human societies is called social Darwinism and is a political argument, not a biological one.
Trace the full origin ↓Fill the Gap
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.
Synonyms
View more →Related Words
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.