raison d'être

American  

[rey-zohn de-truh, re-zawn de-tr^uh] / ˈreɪ zoʊn ˈdɛ trə, rɛ zɔ̃ ˈdɛ trə /

noun

raisons d'être plural

1. reason or justification for being or existence.

   Art is the artist's raison d'être.

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raison d'être British  

/ rɛzɔ̃ dɛtrə /

noun

1. reason or justification for existence

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raison d'être Cultural  

1. A basic, essential purpose; a reason to exist: “Professor Naylor argues that in the nuclear age, infantry forces have lost their raison d'être.” From French, meaning “reason for being.”

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• raisons d'être
  plural

Etymology

Origin of raison d'être

Borrowed into English from French around 1865–70

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

raison d'être

Couple the above with ExpressVPN’s pretty stringent privacy policy, you begin to understand that ExpressVPN is more of an “old school” VPN provider, for which security and privacy are a VPN’s raison d’être.

From Salon ● Mar. 13, 2026

It is also working to build the type of cutting-edge AI agents that some investors think threaten its entire raison d’être.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 2026

Fundamentally, the format's raison d'être is now under question.

From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2025

I just saw James Mangold’s Bob Dylan-goes-electric history lesson “A Complete Unknown,” the music biopic that wears its subject’s impenetrable nature as its raison d’être.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 11, 2024

And its worst result was the hopeless self-abandonment and sluggish cowardice of a class, whose chief raison d’être in every age is to maintain a tradition of gallant dignity.

From Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius by Dill, Samuel