existentialism.
A 20th-century philosophical movement emphasizing the uniqueness of each human existence in freely making its self-defining choices; also (generally), a philosophy which emphasizes existence over essence.
Meaning & usage
A 20th-century philosophical movement emphasizing the uniqueness of each human existence in freely making its self-defining choices; also (generally), a philosophy which emphasizes existence over essence.
The heyday of existentialism occurred in the mid-twentieth century.
The philosophical views of a particular thinker associated with the existentialist movement.
Sartre’s existentialism is atheistic, but the existentialism of Marcel is distinctly Christian.
Synonym of structuralism (“a school of thought that focuses on exploring the individual elements of consciousness, how they are organized into more complex experiences, and how these mental phenomena correlate with physical events”).
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰ Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs Proto-Italic *eks Latin ex Latin ex- Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- Proto-Indo-European *stísteh₂ti Proto-Italic *sistō Latin sistō Latin exsistō Latin exsistēns Proto-Indo-European *-(i)yós Proto-Italic *-ijos Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -ia Latin exsistentia Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.? Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālis Late Latin exsistentiālislbor. English existential Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós)der. English -ism English existentialism From existential + -ism (suffix forming the names of schools of thought, systems, or theories), modelled after German Existentialismus. The word was popularized by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) in his work L’existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism is a Humanism, 1946).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.