Library / English Dictionary

EXISTENTIALIST

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A philosopher who emphasizes freedom of choice and personal responsibility but who regards human existence in a hostile universe as unexplainable

Synonyms:

existential philosopher; existentialist; existentialist philosopher

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("existentialist" is a kind of...):

philosopher (a specialist in philosophy)

Instance hyponyms:

Beauvoir; Simone de Beauvoir (French feminist and existentialist and novelist (1908-1986))

Albert Camus; Camus (French writer who portrayed the human condition as isolated in an absurd world (1913-1960))

Heidegger; Martin Heidegger (German philosopher whose views on human existence in a world of objects and on Angst influenced the existential philosophers (1889-1976))

Jean-Paul Sartre; Sartre (French writer and existentialist philosopher (1905-1980))

Derivation:

existentialism ((philosophy) a 20th-century philosophical movement chiefly in Europe; assumes that people are entirely free and thus responsible for what they make of themselves)

 II. (adjective) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Relating to or involving existentialism

Example:

the existentialist character of his ideas

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Pertainym:

existentialism ((philosophy) a 20th-century philosophical movement chiefly in Europe; assumes that people are entirely free and thus responsible for what they make of themselves)

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