Ontological

adj

adj ·5 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or relating to ontology. not-comparable

    "A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put in three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: ‘What is there?’ It can be answered, moreover, in a word—‘Everything’—and everyone will accept this answer as true."

  2. 2
    Of or pertaining to the nature of being or existence. not-comparable

    "Such is the human ontological imagination, and such is the convincingness of what it brings to birth. Unpicturable beings are realized, and realized with an intensity almost like that of an hallucination."

Adjective
  1. 1
    of or relating to ontology wordnet

Example

More examples

"The inconvenient improbability that we exist as self-conscious beings raises the ontological questions of where, when, and how did it all come into being."

Etymology

From ontology + -ical.

Related phrases

ontological argumentontological proofontological shock

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