Existential

How to spell existential

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce existential

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does existential mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to existence, or to a crisis that threatens the very survival of something or someone.

Existential in a sentence

• The funding cuts posed an existential threat to the small charity.

• Turning forty triggered a brief existential crisis about his career choices.

Where does existential come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb existere (also written exsistere), which literally meant 'to step out' or 'to stand forth', built from the prefix ex- 'out' and sistere 'to take a stand'. From the sense of stepping out into view came the broader meaning 'to come into being' or simply 'to be', which gave us the everyday word 'exist'. The adjective form passed through Late Latin existentialis and reached English in the 1600s, at first meaning nothing more than 'relating to existence'. Its modern, weightier flavour arrived in the twentieth century, when translators of the German and French philosophers attached it to existentialism, the movement of thinkers such as Sartre who asked what it means to exist at all. The spelling trap lives in the ending: the cluster is -tial, sounded 'shul', and the unstressed vowels before it offer no clue from the pronunciation alone.

How the word is built

• exist- (from Latin existere: to stand out, come into being)
• -ent (present participle)
• -ial (adjective suffix)