Etymologically
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exist

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ɪɡˈzɪst/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French exister,[2][3] from Latin exsistere (“to step out, stand forth, emerge; to exist”) (existere),[2][3][4] from ex- (“out, forth”) and sistere (“to cause to stand, take up a position”),[3][4] a reduplicated formation related to stāre (“to stand”).[5][3] Hoad and the New Oxford take the English verb as probably a back-formation from existence, which is much older.[5][6] It is related to stand, consist, insist and extant.[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

1602, in Marston's Antonio's Revenge,[3] in the OED's sense “to have being in a specified place or under specified conditions”.[8] Merriam-Webster dates it to about 1560,[4] Etymonline to about 1600.[2]

Semantic evolution

“To have objective being, to be real” is from 1605.[8] “To continue in being” is from 1790, and “to have life, to live” from 1828,[8] with the weaker “to live at a minimal level, subsist” later.[9][10] The OED found the late appearance of the word remarkable;[2] Middle English often used ibēn, based on be, for “to exist”.[2] The noun existence is from about 1380, in Chaucer's House of Fame, as “reality”, and “the state of existing” from about 1430.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 1380 – existence, reality.[3]
  • 1602 – to have being in a place.[3][8]
  • 1605 – to be real.[8]
  • 1790 – to continue in being.[8]
  • 1828 – to live.[8]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To have actual being; to be real.
  2. To have life; to live.
  3. To live at a minimal level; to subsist.
  4. To be found; to occur in a place or situation.

Word family

  • exister
  • coexist
  • preexist
  • existence
  • existent
  • existential
  • consist
  • insist
  • persist
  • resist
  • assist
  • extant
  • stand

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  10. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster