exist Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb have an existence, be extant
    be.
    • Is there a God?
  2. verb support oneself
    survive; live; subsist.
    • 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

WordNet

Ex*ist" intransitive verb
Etymology
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.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Existed; present participle & verbal noun Existing
Definitions
  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.

Webster 1913