existing
Americanadjective
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already or previously in place, before being replaced, altered, or added to.
Fundraising costs money, and recruiting new donors is more expensive than asking existing supporters to give a little more.
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having actual being or life.
The great ornithologist Alexander Wetmore, who died in 1978, allegedly declared that all existing species of birds had already been discovered.
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occurring in a specified place or under specified conditions.
Members of committees dealing with the behavior of intelligence services met to discuss the existing challenges and exchange best practices.
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achieving only the basic needs of existence, as food and shelter.
Forrest Bess was a marginally existing bait fisherman and artist who lived in a ramshackle cabin on the Gulf of Mexico.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of existing
Explanation
If something is existing, it's real. When you make a list of existing mammals, you can't include unicorns, because they don't really exist. Something that's real can be said to exist, or to be existing. The existing laws in your state are the ones that are actually on the books, and your existing friends are the ones you really have, and who are all alive and well. The verb exist, at the root of the adjective existing, comes from the Latin existere, "come into being," from a combination of ex, "out," and sistere, "take a stand."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Existing cancer studies have also often included too few Asian Americans to draw meaningful conclusions about specific ethnic groups, researchers said.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 6, 2026
Existing and upcoming sky surveys could potentially identify them through their effects on visible light.
From Science Daily • Jun. 5, 2026
Existing GitLab customers spent more than they did in the year prior, and the count of customers with more than $100,000 in annual recurring revenue increased 18%.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 2, 2026
Existing vaccines against Ebola are only effective for the Zaire strain of the virus, which is responsible for the largest recorded outbreaks.
From Barron's • May 18, 2026
Shelley contributed to a subscription list in aid of Finnerty and also wrote a poem entitled A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things to help on the cause.
From The Radicalism of Shelley and Its Sources by MacDonald, Daniel J.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
