Existence

//ɛɡˈzɪs.təns// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The state of being, existing, or occurring; beinghood. countable, uncountable

    "In order to destroy evil, we must first acknowledge its existence."

  2. 2
    everything that exists anywhere wordnet
  3. 3
    Empirical reality; the substance of the physical universe. (Dictionary of Philosophy; 1968) countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    the state or fact of existing wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
beingbeingbeingnessaccessibilityactual presenceactuality

Example

More examples

"Heat and light are necessary for our existence."

Etymology

From Middle English existence, from Old French existence, from Late Latin existentia (“existence”), from existēns, from existō, exsistō (“I am, I exist”), from ex (“out”) + sistere (“to set, place”) (related to stare (“to stand, to be stood”)), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *stísteh₂ti, from the root *steh₂- (“stand”). Cognate with Spanish existencia, French existence, German Existenz. Morphologically exist + -ence.

Related phrases

bane of someone's existenceco-existencein existencenon-existenceself-existencethree marks of existencetimeless existencewaste of existence

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.