Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or dealing with existence.
  • adjective Based on experience; empirical.
  • adjective Of or as conceived by existentialism or existentialists.
  • adjective Linguistics Of or relating to a construction or part of a construction that indicates existence, as the words there is in the sentence There is a cat on the mat.
  • noun An existential word or construction.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of, pertaining to, or consisting in existence; ontological.
  • Expressing or stating the fact of existence.
  • Pertaining to external and accidental characters.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Archaic Having existence.
  • adjective of or pertaining to, or having the character of, existentialism.
  • adjective (Logic) specifying actual existence, rather than only possibility.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, or relating to existence.
  • adjective Based on experience; empirical.
  • adjective philosophy Of, or relating to existentialism.
  • adjective linguistics That part of a sentence indicating existence e.g. "there is".

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective relating to or dealing with existence (especially with human existence)
  • adjective derived from experience or the experience of existence
  • adjective of or as conceived by existentialism

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French existence.

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Examples

  • He did not specifically mention Iran, but the use of the phrase "existential threat" in Israel generally refers to Iran.

    USATODAY.com Feed 2012

  • He also received standing ovations by citing what he called existential threats posed to Israel by Iran's nuclear program and the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which the U.S. designates a terrorist group.

    Obama Shifts Tone on Israel Borders Jay Solomon 2011

  • I caught up again recently with digital pioneer and media contrarian Jeff Einstein of the Brothers Einstein, and we discussed what he describes as the existential crisis in the commercial media channels today.

    Forbes.com: News Peter Krainik 2011

  • It is to say that the complex order evident in existential reality is a product of deliberate design carried out by an Absolute Deity as named and characterized in a specific religious belief-system.

    Towards a Lexicon of Folly: Factard Hal Duncan 2010

  • The teleological argument is implicit: to observe the complex order evident in existential reality is, in and of itself, the decisive action of verification; such complex order can only arise from design, so to establish the epistemic certainty of such complex order is to establish the epistemic certainty of the action of design having been carried out by a designing agency.

    Towards a Lexicon of Folly: Factard Hal Duncan 2010

  • Similarly, "Laura No. 1" 2009 stares at her image in the mirror with an expression of existential questioning as she considers what to do next.

    On the Beaten Path, Prepping for War William Meyers 2011

  • Where it asserts that the order inherent in existential reality is "so profound" that one "can see that it is the handiwork of God," this is at root a valid description of human responses to complexity: as one becomes cognizant of higher and higher degrees of order one is quite likely to experience a higher and higher conviction that this order is the result of deliberate design.

    Archive 2010-03-01 Hal Duncan 2010

  • The teleological argument is implicit: to observe the complex order evident in existential reality is, in and of itself, the decisive action of verification; such complex order can only arise from design, so to establish the epistemic certainty of such complex order is to establish the epistemic certainty of the action of design having been carried out by a designing agency.

    Archive 2010-03-01 Hal Duncan 2010

  • It is to say that the complex order evident in existential reality is a product of deliberate design carried out by an Absolute Deity as named and characterized in a specific religious belief-system.

    Archive 2010-03-01 Hal Duncan 2010

  • Where it asserts that the order inherent in existential reality is "so profound" that one "can see that it is the handiwork of God," this is at root a valid description of human responses to complexity: as one becomes cognizant of higher and higher degrees of order one is quite likely to experience a higher and higher conviction that this order is the result of deliberate design.

    Towards a Lexicon of Folly: Factard Hal Duncan 2010

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