existentialist
Americanadjective
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of or relating to existentialism.
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relating to concerns about one's own existence or survival; existential.
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affirming or celebrating existence.
noun
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.
The existentialist writer reluctantly moved to the northern city in 1931 for a teaching job after he had failed to obtain one in his native Paris.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
The film scandalised the American public and was banned in some US states, while the French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir hailed her as an icon of "absolute freedom".
From BBC ● Dec. 28, 2025
For Linklater, the 63-year-old director of “Boyhood,” “Dazed and Confused” and “Before Sunset,” “Hit Man” is a typically existentialist film but playfully twisted into a genre-bending noir screwball.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 13, 2023
Of course, one cannot completely escape loneliness, as it is a natural part of the human experience; or "la condition humaine," as a French existentialist might say.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2023
It is hard to imagine a solitary, independent, existentialist minnow, recognizable for himself alone; minnows in a school behave like interchangeable, identical parts of an organism.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
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.
