The ability of a material to return to its original dimensions after being acted upon by a force is called:

The term that describes a material's ability to return to its original dimensions after being subjected to a force is elasticity. Elasticity is a fundamental property of materials that reflects how they deform under stress and then recover when the stress is removed.

In practical terms, when a force is applied to an elastic material, it will stretch or compress but will return to its original form once the force is no longer acting upon it. This property is critical in many engineering applications where materials must withstand varying loads and stresses over time without undergoing permanent deformation.

Tensile strength refers to the maximum amount of tensile (pulling) stress a material can withstand before failure, which does not address the recovery aspect. Fatigue strength is related to a material's ability to withstand repeated loading over time, often leading to failure after many cycles, and compressive strength is the capacity of a material to withstand axial loads that reduce its size. While these properties are important in evaluating material performance, they do not pertain directly to the ability to return to original dimensions after deformation, which is why elasticity is the correct answer.