existentialism

Etymology

It is formed from English existential + -ism, after German Existentialismus, recorded in 1919 in W. Moog's “Logik, Psychologie und Psychologismus”.^[2][3][4] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English instead call it a translation of Danish Existents-Forhold (“condition of existence”),^[5][6] the term the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard used often, in 1846 or earlier,^[2][4] and Klein says it was first used to translate German Existenzphilosophie (“philosophy of existence”).^[7] Existential goes back through existence and exist to Latin exsistō (“to step out, emerge, exist”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In psychology, the study of consciousness by analysing experience into its elements, also called structuralism: 1922, in the American Journal of Psychology.^[2] This sense is now only historical.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The philosophical sense follows in 1933, in the Philosophical Review,^[2] against the first date of 1941 in Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged.^[4][8] The OED notes that the movement developed in the mid 20th century, chiefly in continental Europe, with Jaspers, Sartre and others, and that its origins are often traced to Kierkegaard.^[2][7] The word gained wide currency after Sartre adopted it, publishing the short work L'existentialisme est un humanisme in 1946.^[2] Its key idea, as the dictionaries sum it up, is that a person has no predetermined essence and forms it by acts of will,^[5] a free agent responsible in a seemingly meaningless universe.^[9] The word existentialist is recorded earlier: as a philosophical adjective from 1895, and as a noun for such a philosopher from 1930.^[2]

Timeline

• 1919 – German Existentialismus, in W. Moog.^[2][4]
• 1922 – in psychology, the same as structuralism.^[2]
• 1933 – the philosophical movement.^[2] Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged date it to 1941.^[4][8]
• 1946 – L'existentialisme est un humanisme, by Sartre, spreads the term.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A modern philosophical movement that centres on individual existence, seeing each person as a free agent who gives life its meaning through choices and is responsible for them.^[9][5][8][2]
2. (psychology, historical) Structuralism, an approach that analyses conscious experience into its elements.^[2]

Word family

• existentialist
• existentialistic
• existentialistically

Related words

• exist
• existence
• existential
• essentialism

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins