nonexistent
Britishadjective
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not having being or existence
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not present under specified conditions or in a specified place
Other Word Forms
- nonexistence noun
Explanation
Something that's nonexistent doesn't really exist. When your cat hisses at her reflection in the mirror, she's attacking a nonexistent enemy. The adjective nonexistent describes something that's not real. Your nonexistent problems are only in your imagination, for example, and you may pretend to answer a nonexistent phone call to avoid an awkward conversation with an acquaintance at the post office. The word existent is at the heart of nonexistent, with its root of existence. They all come from the Latin word exsistere, "to come into being, to appear, or to be."
Vocabulary lists containing nonexistent
Zilch, Zip, Nada: Words For Nothing
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Nobody's Home: Synonyms For "Absent"
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The Phantom Tollbooth
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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.
Yet enforcement of firearm relinquishment remains at best inconsistent and at worst nonexistent.
From Slate • Apr. 25, 2026
The court responded by once again raising concerns that one citation was nonexistent and two other AI-assisted citations had only “tenuous” relevance to the case at hand.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 14, 2026
The offenses of the first three are likely nonexistent.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 8, 2026
“The number of defaults are almost nonexistent and really troubled situations are very small,” Bissonnette said on last month’s earnings call.
From Barron's • Mar. 17, 2026
Rather more cautious, Alvarez confided to his diary: “I am going on almost full-time as director of a nonexistent laboratory on an unauthorized program.”
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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.
