Adjacent Words

Exist definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

EXIST', v.i. egzist'. [L. existo; ex and sisto, or more directly from Gr. to set, place or fix; L. sto, to stand. The primary sense is to set, fix or be fixed, whence the sense of permanence, continuance.]
1. To be; to have an essence or real being; applicable to matter or body, and to spiritual substances. A supreme being and first cause of all other beings must have existed from eternity, for no being can have created himself.
2. To live; to have life or animation. Men cannot exist in water, nor fishes on land.
3. To remain; to endure; to continue in being. How long shall national enmities exist?

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

v
1: have an existence, be extant; "Is there a God?" [syn: exist, be]
2: support oneself; "he could barely exist on such a low wage"; "Can you live on $2000 a month in New York City?"; "Many people in the world have to subsist on $1 a day" [syn: exist, survive, live, subsist]

Merriam Webster's

intransitive verb Etymology: Latin exsistere to come into being, exist, from ex- + sistere to stand, stop; akin to Latin stare to stand — more at stand Date: circa 1568 1. a. to have real being whether material or spiritual <did unicorns exist> <the largest galaxy known to exist> b. to have being in a specified place or with respect to understood limitations or conditions <strange ideas existed in his mind> 2. to continue to be <racism still exists in society> 3. a. to have life or the functions of vitality <we cannot exist without oxygen> b. to live at an inferior level or under adverse circumstances <the hungry existing from day to day>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v.intr. 1 have a place as part of objective reality. 2 a have being under specified conditions. b (foll. by as) exist in the form of. 3 (of circumstances etc.) occur; be found. 4 live with no pleasure under adverse conditions (felt he was merely existing). 5 continue in being; maintain life (can hardly exist on this salary). 6 be alive, live. Etymology: prob. back-form. f. EXISTENCE; cf. LL existere

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Exist Ex*ist", v. i. [imp. & p. p. Existed; p. pr. & vb. n. Existing.] [L. existere, exsistere, to step out or forth, emerge, appear, exist; ex out + sistere to cause to stand, to set, put, place, stand still, fr. stare to stand: cf. F. exister. See Stand.] 1. To be as a fact and not as a mode; to have an actual or real being, whether material or spiritual. Who now, alas! no more is missed Than if he never did exist. --Swift. To conceive the world . . . to have existed from eternity. --South. 2. To be manifest in any manner; to continue to be; as, great evils existed in his reign. 3. To live; to have life or the functions of vitality; as, men can not exist water, nor fishes on land. Syn: See Be.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(exists, existing, existed) Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. 1. If something exists, it is present in the world as a real thing. He thought that if he couldn't see something, it didn't exist... Research opportunities exist in a wide range of pure and applied areas of entomology... VERB: no cont, V, V 2. To exist means to live, especially under difficult conditions or with very little food or money. I was barely existing. ...the problems of having to exist on unemployment benefit. VERB: V, V on n

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

v. n. 1. Be, subsist, have being. 2. Live, breathe, have life, be alive. 3. Continue, remain, endure, last, abide.

Moby Thesaurus

Be, abide, abide in, be, be alive, be animate, be coextensive with, be comprised in, be constituted by, be contained in, be extant, be found, be in existence, be located, be met with, be present, be present in, be situated, be the case, be there, bide, breathe, carry on, consist in, continue, continue to be, defeat time, defy time, draw breath, dwell, dwell in, endure, exist in, extend, fetch breath, get along, get by, go on, happen, happen to be, have being, have life, have place, hold, hold on, hold out, indwell, inhabit, inhere, inhere in, keep, keep on, last, last long, last out, lie, lie in, live, live and breathe, live on, live through, maintain, move, obtain, occur, perdure, perennate, persist, prevail, remain, repose in, reside, reside in, respire, rest in, run, run on, stand, stay, stay on, subsist, subsist in, survive, sustain, tarry, tide over, walk the earth, wear, wear well