Sartre

American  

[sahr-truh, sahrt, sar-tr^uh] / ˈsɑr trə, sɑrt, ˈsar trə /

noun

1. Jean-Paul 1905–80, French philosopher, novelist, and dramatist: declined 1964 Nobel Prize in literature.

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Sartre British  

/ sartrə /

noun

1. Jean-Paul (ʒɑ̃pɔl). 1905–80, French philosopher, novelist, and dramatist; chief French exponent of atheistic existentialism. His works include the philosophical essay Being and Nothingness (1943), the novels Nausea (1938) and Les Chemins de la liberté (1945–49), a trilogy, and the plays Les Mouches (1943), Huis clos (1944), and Les Mains sales (1948)

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Example Sentences

The existential philosophy of Camus and Sartre, self-evident truths for these absurdist writers, is conveyed less through the content than through the style of their plays.

From Los Angeles Times • May 13, 2026

“A gap year,” it was called, as if the Celtics were going to bolt off to a drafty Paris flat and pretend to read Sartre.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 2, 2026

Sartre argued that for the antisemite, “there is no question of building a new society, but only of purifying the one that exists.”

From Salon • Dec. 17, 2025

Writers Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Samuel Beckett and singer Serge Gainsbourg were laid to rest at Montparnasse, while actress Jane Birkin's ashes were interned there.

From BBC • Nov. 4, 2025

I blended Catholicism with borrowed insights from Sartre and Zen and Buber and Miltonic Protestantism.

From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez