esistere

Forms

esistere (first-person singular present esìsto, first-person singular past historic esistétti or (traditional) esistètti or esistéi, past participle esistìto, auxiliary èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin exsistō (“to step out, emerge, appear; to exist”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is a compound of ex- (“out”) and sistō (“to stand, stop”), which Nocentini describes as the momentary counterpart of stō (“to stand”).^[2][3][5][6] The same Latin verb gave French exister, recorded from the 14th century, and Spanish existir.^[7][3][8]

The derived nouns are also learned: esistenza continues Late Latin exsistentia, and esistenziale the Late Latin adjective exsistentiālis.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Questioni filosofiche of about 1298, from south-eastern Tuscany, in the sense “to be real, to have actual existence”; the Old Italian texts mostly show the present participle esistente.^[9] DELI, by contrast, dates the verb only to Daniello Bartoli (before 1685), and rejects the 14th-century date that DEI took from a translation of Saint Augustine, because the edition used was unreliable.^[2][7] Zingarelli gives before 1342.^[10] The GDLI quotes Bartoli: “In Dio è necessario che l'esistere sia la medesima cosa coll'essere” (In God existing must be the same thing as being).^[8]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to be alive” is recorded in Giuseppe Baretti in 1779.^[2] In the 19th century purists attacked esistere for vivere and esistenza for vita as Gallicisms: Tommaseo noted that ordinary people did not say ha cessato di esistere of someone who had died, and Panzini (1905) wrote that using the verb simply for “to be” was considered a French usage.^[2]

The derivatives came earlier than the verb's first sure date: esistenza in Giordano da Pisa (1304) and esistente in Domenico Cavalca (before 1342).^[2][3] Esistenziale is recorded before 1764, and its philosophical use followed French existentiel, which Bergson used in 1907;^[2][3] esistenzialismo (1938, after German Existentialismus) and esistenzialista named the 20th-century philosophy.^[2][3] In colloquial speech non esiste! means that something is absurd or out of the question.^[4][11][10]

Timeline

• About 1298 – The verb appears in the Questioni filosofiche.^[9]
• 1304 – Giordano da Pisa uses esistenza.^[2]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses esistente.^[2][10]
• Before 1685 – Daniello Bartoli uses esistere, DELI's first record.^[2][4]
• 1779 – Giuseppe Baretti uses it for “to be alive”.^[2]
• 1905 – Panzini lists its use for “to be” as a Gallicism.^[2]
• 1938 – Esistenzialismo is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To exist, to be real: Secondo lui i fantasmi non esistono.^{[4][11][6][1]}
2. To be there, to be found, to occur: In quella regione esistono ancora molte specie rare.^[4][11][12]
3. (colloquial) non esiste!: no way, that is out of the question.^[4][11][10]
4. To matter, to count: Per lei esiste solo la musica.^[4][11][6]
5. To live, be alive, cessare di esistere means to die.^[4][11][12]

Word family

• esistente
• esistenza
• esistenziale
• esistenzialismo
• esistenzialista
• esistenzialistico
• inesistente

Related words

• coesistere
• preesistere
• insistere
• resistere
• stare
• Latin exsistō
• French exister

Usage notes

Esistere takes essere: sono esistite.^[11][10][1] The past historic is esistei or esistetti.^[11][10][1] It is also used as a masculine noun, l'esistere, “existence”.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1537
8. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 5, 355
9. ^ a b Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
10. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana