Oferlibban

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Remaining alive after another person or thing has died or ended, as a verb from Old English meaning to live beyond
2. Continuing to exist past the point where someone else has passed away, an archaic English verb for outliving another
3. To outlast or get through a time of danger or loss and still be living, a term drawn from Old English usage

Etymology: Oferlibban is an Old English verb, and its parts are easy to read: "ofer" means "over, beyond, across" (the same root as modern "over"), and "libban" means "to live," the ancestor of modern "live." Put together, it meant "to live beyond" or "to outlive," so to survive someone or something, to remain alive after another has died. The verb was a native English formation built from well-known parts, so there is no famous coiner or dramatic shift to report. Its meaning stayed close to the literal sense of living past a point, and it belongs to a large family of Old English compounds that used "ofer" the same way, such as "oferwinnan" (to overcome) and "oferfaran" (to pass over).