Definition of "convalescence" [con•va•les•cence]

• Gradual return to health and strength after illness. (noun)
• The period needed for returning to health after illness. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Moreover, each several motion takes its name rather from the goal than from the starting-point of change, e.g. motion to health we call convalescence, motion to disease sickening."
• "This proceeding is crowned with the desired results; the convalescence is shorter and easier, and there is less danger of serious sequelæ, which, according to all experience, are so common in complicated cases of scarlatina, otorrhœa and suppuration of the parotid glands are generally avoided under this treatment without any other aid, or, if it is impossible to avert such changes, they generally come to a speedy and safe end."
• "The idea of this Christmas reunion had originated with Edith Monroe the preceding spring, during her tedious convalescence from a bad attack of pneumonia among strangers in an American city, where she had not been able to fill her concert engagements, and had more spare time in which to feel the tug of old ties and the homesick longing for her own people than she had had for years."