Meaning & use
existential
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Meanings
adjectivebefore a noun
Relating to human existence, especially questions of meaning, purpose, freedom, and mortality.
Grammar: Usually comes before a noun: existential questions, an existential crisis.
Patterns
- existential questions
- an existential crisis
- existential philosophy
Losing his job sent him into an existential crisis about his purpose in life.
The novel deals with existential questions about freedom and death.
Students study existential thinkers like Sartre and Camus.
adjectivebefore a noun
Posing a threat to the very existence of something; endangering survival itself.
Grammar: Common in news and politics, especially in the phrase existential threat.
Patterns
- an existential threat
- existential danger
The island nation faces an existential threat from rising sea levels.
Some historians argue the war posed an existential danger to the young republic.
The company treated the new technology as an existential risk to its business.
Common combinations
- an existential threat
- Climate change is widely described as an existential threat to coastal communities.
- an existential crisis
- After the divorce, he went through a period of existential crisis.
- existential questions
- The film raises existential questions about identity and choice.
Synonyms and how they differ
- life-and-death
- Means involving survival itself; a good plain-language match for the threatening sense, but not for the philosophical sense.
- philosophical
- Covers the abstract-thinking sense broadly; existential specifically concerns existence, meaning, and freedom.
- ontological
- A technical near-synonym for the philosophical sense, concerning the nature of being; too formal for general use.
Word family
- exist verb
- To be or to live.
- existence noun
- The state of being.
- existent adjective
- Existing; in being.
- existentialism noun
- The philosophy centered on individual existence, choice, and freedom.
- existentially adverb
- In a way relating to existence.
Commonly confused: existential or existing?
existential vs existing
Existing means currently present or in use (existing customers); existential relates to existence as a concept or to threats to survival.
Practice
In the sentence 'The drought is an ______ threat to the region's farmers,' which word fits best?
Choose one answer.
Existential threat is the standard phrase for something endangering survival itself. Existing would mean the threat is already present (a different claim), existent is a rare adjective meaning 'in being,' and exist is a verb that cannot modify a noun.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “existential”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.