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EXISTENTIALIST
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Dictionary entry overview: What does existentialist mean?
• EXISTENTIALIST (noun)
The noun EXISTENTIALIST has 1 sense:
1. a philosopher who emphasizes freedom of choice and personal responsibility but who regards human existence in a hostile universe as unexplainable
Familiarity information: EXISTENTIALIST used as a noun is very rare.
• EXISTENTIALIST (adjective)
The adjective EXISTENTIALIST has 1 sense:
1. relating to or involving existentialism
Familiarity information: EXISTENTIALIST used as an adjective is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
A philosopher who emphasizes freedom of choice and personal responsibility but who regards human existence in a hostile universe as unexplainable
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Synonyms:
existential philosopher; existentialist; existentialist philosopher
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)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Relating to or involving existentialism
Classified under:
Relational adjectives (pertainyms)
Context example:
the existentialist character of his ideas
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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