Ontic
adj
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Adjective
- 1 Ontological.
- 2 Pertaining to being, as opposed to pertaining to a theory of it (which would be ontological).
"My descriptions are ontical—addressing the world we inhabit, the what and where and how and why of objects therein; my questions are not ontological in the sense of struggling (vainly) to answer the question of the being of things tout court."
Example
More examples"My descriptions are ontical—addressing the world we inhabit, the what and where and how and why of objects therein; my questions are not ontological in the sense of struggling (vainly) to answer the question of the being of things tout court."
Etymology
From Ancient Greek ὄν (ón, “being, existing, essence”) (stem ὄντ- (ónt-)) + -ic.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.