existential.

Relating to existence, human life, or its fundamental meaning.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• existential question
• existential threat

On the page

For the island community, rising seas posed an existential threat.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Normally non-gradable; no ordinary comparative or superlative. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: analysis, evaluation. Commonness: moderately common.