existentialist

American  

[eg-zi-sten-shuhl-ist, ek-si-] / ˌɛg zɪˈstɛn ʃəl ɪst, ˌɛk sɪ- /

adjective

1. of or relating to existentialism.

2. relating to concerns about one's own existence or survival; existential.

3. affirming or celebrating existence.

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noun

1. someone adhering to existentialism.

Example Sentences

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

The draft feels like a café napkin sketch: schematic and brutally declamatory — the dialogue a parody of existentialist theater shouted through a bullhorn.

From Salon • Mar. 5, 2023

In her earlier books, “At the Existentialist Café” and “How to Live,” Bakewell introduced readers to the major questions facing the existentialist philosophers.

From New York Times • Mar. 1, 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