adjective
existential
concerned with human existence and the search for meaning in it
In a sentence
Six example sentences with existential, each labelled with its topic.
The seminar spent a month on existential questions, arguing that a person is nothing more than the sum of their choices.
Philosophy
Postwar novels put a clerk in an empty room and let him face existential dread with no comforting answer.
Literature
The film stages an existential crisis in a diner, where a waitress asks why anyone bothers ordering breakfast.
Movies
Existential therapists focus less on symptoms than on a client's questions about purpose, freedom, and choice.
Psychology
The album's existential lyrics ask what a person owes to a life they never asked for, over cheerful ukulele chords.
Music
The sculptor's thin walking figures carry an existential weight, each one alone even when placed in a crowd.
Art
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Found in these word lists
- Computer Science Word ListAuthoritative
- 5000 GRE Words (widely used study list)Recognized
- GRE Word List 4700 (widely used study list)Recognized
Each source is a published word list that contains existential. No exam board publishes an official GRE, GMAT or SAT list; GMAT words come from GRE lists and the Academic Word List.