Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The fact or state of existing; being.
- n. The fact or state of continued being; life: our brief existence on Earth.
- n. All that exists: sang the beauty of all existence.
- n. A thing that exists; an entity.
- n. A mode or manner of existing: scratched out a meager existence.
- n. Specific presence; occurrence: The Geiger counter indicated the existence of radioactivity.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Actual being; being at a certain moment or throughout a certain period of time; being such as ordinary objects possess. See being.
- n. Hence Life; vital or sentient being; state of life.
- n. That which exists; that which actually is an individual thing; an actuality.
- n. Reality; fact; truth.
- n. In logic, presence in the universe, system, or total collection of individual objects considered. A class is said to exist when an individual of the class occurs in the universe considered; a relation is said to exist when a set of individuals in the universe is in that relation. Consequently such relations as incompossibility, refuting the existence of, and the like, although they are in a sense relations (better called pseudorelations), do not possess existence. On the other hand the relation of adjectives to corresponding abstract nouns, and other similar relations, refer at once to two different universes, the one of actually existing things, the other of possible symbols, and may thus be admitted to possess existence relatively to a second universe.
Wiktionary
- n. The state of being, existing, or occurring; beinghood.
- n. empirical reality; the substance of the physical universe Dictionary of Philosophy; 1968.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The state of existing or being; actual possession of being; continuance in being
- n. Continued or repeated manifestation; occurrence, as of events of any kind.
- n. That which exists; a being; a creature; an entity.
WordNet 3.0
- n. everything that exists anywhere
- n. the state or fact of existing
Etymologies
- From Old French existence, from Late Latin existentia ("existence"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Bolzano took this dictum to be about existence in his own narrow sense of ˜existence™ or”
“If, rejecting the word Thing, we endeavour to find another of a more general import, or at least more exclusively confined to that general import, a word denoting all that exists, and connoting only simple existence; no word might be presumed fitter for such a purpose than _being_: originally the present participle of a verb which in one of its meanings is exactly equivalent to the verb _exist_; and therefore suitable, even by its grammatical formation, to be the concrete of the abstract _existence_.”
A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive (Vol. 1 of 2)
“One of the things that make Glock pistols some of the safest in existence is their unique Safe Action System.”
i looked at a glock 27 today to use as a backup weapon for my job.
“Any fictional character in existence is eligible for this list.”
The 100 Greatest Fictional Characters of All Time | Fandomania
“A fine art facsimile edition of one of the greatest medieval illuminated manuscripts in existence is published by the British Library, in association with Faksimile Verlag Luzern, on 23 March 2007.”
“The book, one of seven in existence, is referenced in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”
“The science fiction now in existence is no longer "science.”
“I'll answer your first question: The finest salsa in existence is Salsa Magnifico's Raspberry Salsa, available for a piddling price considering what you get.”
“She works on an antiquated computer (15 years old – the only other one of its type still in existence is in the Science Museum!).”
“Some have been in existence from the beginning and others come and go.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘existence’.
-
Philosophical Shit
Thought-provokers; words that ask more questions than they answer.
meta, semantic, signify, sign, autological, heterological, ontology, hylozoism, abiogenesis, anima, homoiconicity, anthropomorphism and 11 more...
-
Words I Misspell
There are words suffering from a butcher.
prioprietary, definitely, a lot, bellwether, committed, daiquiri, existence, gauge, guard, guarantee, harass, lightning and 7 more...
-
big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
-
NTB
chaos, Sagittarius, aether, magic, jester, fool, random, delirium, fire, life, cosmic, riddle and 120 more...
-
Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
-
my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
-
tragedy of the commons
insomnia, arabesque, carousal, lucifer, riot, submerge, initiate, indigo, existence, magenta, opus, sleeplessness and 145 more...
-
The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
-
n4oliver's Words
ubiquitous, heteroatom, metrosexual, chemistry, benzaldehyde, almond, wine, absurd, behoove, thong, existential, ambiguous and 24 more...
-
jetoti's Words
german, delightful, delicious, sway, gravity, eternity, malicious, maybe, anger, daft, mad, care and 14 more...
-
vocab set 1
affluent, array, azure, bazaar, comparable, convey, cubicle, elusive, essence, existence, flare, incense and 8 more...
-
Thought-Provoking
actuality, existence, being, ens, essence, quintessence, existential, metacognition, atychiphobia, cryptomnesia, melancholia, darkness and 8 more...
-
Vaguesswork
Things held by a weaselspeaker. (Katigans without the madeupicals.)
obfuscation, obtuse, apparatus, element, it, existence, information, point, substance, stuff, sometimes, person and 47 more...
-
beautiful words.
the, known, universe, connection, touch, possibility, cataclysm, revolution, circumvolution, evolution, logic, winter and 71 more...
-
dead
( personal list, randomness )
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/biological
related external links:
anti-god, beholder, witches, pre-human, sudden-death, frankenbeasts, hive mind, kill with a smile, overdose, dwale, existence, aura and 65 more... -
scrap 1
siroco, observe, disrupt, contemplate, intensity, illicit, reckless, predicament, code, tattle, gossip, fizzle and 38 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for existence.

PossibleUnderscore “We can't all, and some just don't. That's all there is to it.�?
- A. A. Milne quote Jul 24, 2009