“Existence is a word that means standing out, not simply being.”
The Latin verb 'existere' (also spelled 'exsistere') means to step out, to emerge, to stand forth. It combines the prefix 'ex-' (out of, from) with 'sistere' (to stand, to cause to stand), itself from the Proto-Indo-European root steh₂- (to stand). Roman writers including Cicero and Livy used 'existere' to mean to come into being or to appear. The abstract noun 'existentia' developed later, in the writings of Boethius (c. 480-524 CE), who needed a term to pair with 'essentia.'
Boethius used 'existentia' to stand beside 'essentia' in his theological tractates. Where 'essentia' asked what a thing is, 'existentia' asked that it is. The Consolation of Philosophy (524 CE), written while Boethius awaited execution in Pavia, helped transmit both terms to medieval Latin scholarship. Scholastic philosophers then spent centuries debating their relationship.
Thomas Aquinas argued in the 13th century that in God alone are essence and existence identical; in all other things, existence is added to essence as an act. John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) challenged this position, and the debate outlasted both men. The word 'existence' entered English around 1400-1450, likely from Old French or directly from scholastic Latin, already carrying the weight of these theological arguments.
In the 20th century, existentialist philosophers reversed the medieval formula. Jean-Paul Sartre's 1946 lecture 'Existentialism is a Humanism' declared that existence precedes essence: humans have no fixed nature given in advance but must create meaning through action. The word shifted from a technical metaphysical term to a description of the human condition. The etymological core, standing out, turns out to be exactly right: to exist is to emerge.
Related Words
Today
The word 'existence' carries two rival histories inside it. Medieval scholasticism used it to ask whether God could guarantee being. Existentialism used it to ask what humans must do without that guarantee. Neither question has been settled, and both still echo in how the word is used.
To speak of existence at all is already to have stepped into philosophy. The word stands, as its Latin root says, outside: not merely being, but being that has come forward.
Explore more words