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What is the meaning of the word 'exist'?

Its etymology reveals it's derived from two Latin words:

  • ex = from + ist = is

Thus, its inventor intended it to mean from is.

What did the inventor of the word have in mind?

To answer my questions you need to know what the meaning of the word 'is' is.

In a recent post of mine, I gave the meaning of life as

X is alive iff x is aware x exists or x can become aware x exists.

My use of the word 'is' in that post is equivalent to the binary relation 'is currently'.

If that's the same meaning the inventor of 'exist' had in mind, then

To exist means to be in the current moment in time.

That's my answer, what is yours?

Addendum: It has been suggested that my etymology is wrong, so I would like to defend it.

  • The Latin word 'est' sounds like 'ist'.
  • The Latin suffix -ere adds 'to' to the verb, to form the present active infinitive verb form.

Cognoscere [Latin]= to know

Credere [Latin]= to believe

Tenere [Latin]= to hold

Today is Friday = Hodie est Veneris.

Est [Latin]= is, it is

Calor [Latin]= heat

Esterecal [Latin]= hysterical= to be hot

As in estrus, estrogen, Easter, etc.

Exestere[Latin]= ex + estere = existere

Existere [Latin]= to exist

So

  • Exist = ex + ist = from + is
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    It's been done @ScottRowe
    – Rushi
    Commented Jun 5 at 1:48
  • 8
    Your etymology is b.s.
    – JonathanZ
    Commented Jun 5 at 3:25
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    Also you may find useful the polysemic word from the Indic context: satya which subsumes the English usages of Truth truthfulness, reality, existence, being, absolute consciousness etc
    – Rushi
    Commented Jun 5 at 3:26
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    My inner linguist is screaming about assuming so much relevance of etymology and "inventor" intent. Meaning is absolutely not an immutable property determined by a word's components or its coiner, even in the relatively rare cases where both are definitively known. Consider "factoid" as a very recent example that has nonetheless wildly diverged from both.
    – Jay McEh
    Commented Jun 5 at 14:19
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    The latest edit is hysterical.
    – Scott Rowe
    Commented Jun 5 at 19:07

4 Answers 4

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We cannot undertake to define being without falling into [an] absurdity: for we cannot define a word without beginning with the word it is, either expressed or understood. To define being therefore, it is necessary to say it is, and thus to employ the word defined in the definition.

On ne peut entreprendre de définir l’être sans tomber dans cette absurdité: car on ne peut définir un mot sans commencer par celui-ci, c’est, soit qu’on l’exprime ou qu’on le sous-entende. Donc pour définir l’être, il faudrait dire c’est, et ainsi employer le mot défini dans sa définition.

Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662), Of the Geometrical Spirit

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  • People seem to have the ability to intuitively bootstrap circular definitions, so this doesn't seem to be a problem in practice. Refusing to define "exist" because it's circular means you can't define any other word, because any definition is going to include "it is".
    – HolyBlackCat
    Commented Jun 5 at 6:16
  • @HolyBlackCat The problem runs deep, e.g. Heidegger GA 2, 4, upon which Derrida comments: "the expression Sein is not only an infinitive but a verbal substantive ... It consolidates [being] and makes it into something. ... Should we abandon a grammatical form that is so threatening for the right thinking of being, a thinking that is neither a concept nor a thinking of a being? ... What would happen if giving up on the grammatical form of the verbal substantive in philosophical discourse, we had to limit ourselves to
    – Chris Degnen
    Commented Jun 5 at 7:47
  • the other forms? ... In that case, one would say: being? — I know nothing about it. I do not know what that means, primarily because I’ve never come across it and no one will ever come across it. The pre-comprehension Heidegger talks about at the beginning of Sein und Zeit is in this case merely an incomprehension. I understand what being means only when being comes to determine something or is determined by something, when I say I am, and you are, and he or it is, and so on." (Jacques Derrida, Heidegger: The Question of Being & History, 1964, p. 51–52)
    – Chris Degnen
    Commented Jun 5 at 7:59
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    @ScottRowe Sounds like 'Being grounded in nothing', so 1. nothing is not much of a genus, and 2. being can be grounded in nothing because it needs no ground. (hence ab-grund, abyss figuratively). That's just what I read.
    – Chris Degnen
    Commented Jun 5 at 19:42
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    @ScottRowe Like this : "There is simply this one ground of being and from it everything arises as a display, like fireworks against a dark sky. Or we could say like the northern lights against the sky. And this is simply things as they are—what is. This can be experienced because the state of spaciousness and emptiness, which is the ground of being, is inseparable from what is sometimes called luminosity, sometimes called knowing. It’s the quality of knowing." Spontaneous Experience, Lion's Roar
    – Chris Degnen
    Commented Jun 6 at 13:05
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The proper derivation is as follows (from my computer dictionary):

late 16th century: from French exister, or from Latin existere, from ex- 'out, outside of' + sistere ‘set up, cause to stand’.

So 'to exist' means 'to stand out' or 'to stand outside of'. The idea, I imagine, is that something exists when it stands out from or is separate from other things.

I don't think the phrase "to exist means to be in the current moment in time" quite works. I think you'd have to say something more like: "to exist means to stand separate in the current moment in time".

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My answer is that to exist, means to be an object in the domain of discourse.

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  • This is the most general answer. If we talk about something, it 'exists' at least in being able to be referred to. The opposite would be 'ineffable'.
    – Scott Rowe
    Commented Jun 5 at 10:39
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Greek υπαρχει : υπ-αρχει : υπό-αρχη : under the (first) principle/order.

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