existing

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ex·ist

(ĭg-zĭst′)

intr.v. ex·ist·ed, ex·ist·ing, ex·ists

1. To have actual being; be real.

2. To have life; live: one of the worst actors that ever existed.

3. To live at a minimal level; subsist: barely enough income on which to exist.

4. To continue to be; persist: old customs that still exist in rural areas.

5. To be present under certain circumstances or in a specified place; occur: "Wealth and poverty exist in every demographic category" (Thomas G. Exter).

[Latin existere, exsistere, to come forth, be manifest : ex-, ex- + sistere, to stand; see stā- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Adj.	1.	existing - presently existing; "the existing system" present - temporal sense; intermediate between past and future; now existing or happening or in consideration; "the present leader"; "articles for present use"; "the present topic"; "the present system"; "present observations"
	2.	existing - having existence or being or actuality; "an attempt to refine the existent machinery to make it more efficient"; "much of the beluga caviar existing in the world is found in the Soviet Union and Iran" existent extant - still in existence; not extinct or destroyed or lost; "extant manuscripts"; "specimens of graphic art found among extant barbaric folk"- Edward Clodd
	3.	existing - existing in something specified; "depletion of the oxygen existing in the bloodstream" present - being or existing in a specified place; "the murderer is present in this room"; "present at the wedding"; "present at the creation"

existing

adjective in existence, living, present, surviving, remaining, available, alive, in operation, extant, alive and kicking the need to improve existing products
lost, gone, dead, vanished, extinct, defunct, died out

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

existing

adjective

1. Having existence or life:

alive, around, existent, extant, living.

2. In existence now:

contemporary, current, existent, new, now, present, present-day.

Translations

existing

[ɪgˈzɪstɪŋ] ADJ [customers, products, facilities] → existente; [law, arrangements, system] → actual, existente
under existing circumstances → en las circunstancias actuales or existentes

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

existing

[ɪgˈzɪstɪŋ] adj [system, regime] → actuel(le); [products] → existant(e); [borrower] → existant(e); [laws] → existant(e)

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

existing

adj → bestehend; circumstances → gegenwärtig; (esp Comput) → vorhanden

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

existing

[ɪgˈzɪstɪŋ] adj (law, state of affairs) → attuale

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

References in classic literature ?

As there is no existing word, our definition would perhaps be more accurate if we coined some word like 'ruddered' as the correlative of 'rudder'.

If the correlative of 'the slave' is said to be 'the master', then, though all irrelevant attributes of the said 'master', such as 'biped', 'receptive of knowledge', 'human', should be removed, and the attribute 'master' alone left, the stated correlation existing between him and the slave will remain the same, for it is of a master that a slave is said to be the slave.

Thus it is essential that the correlated terms should be exactly designated; if there is a name existing, the statement will be easy; if not, it is doubtless our duty to construct names.

View in context

Geology would lead us to believe that almost every continent has been broken up into islands even during the later tertiary periods; and in such islands distinct species might have been separately formed without the possibility of intermediate varieties existing in the intermediate zones.

For any form existing in lesser numbers would, as already remarked, run a greater chance of being exterminated than one existing in large numbers; and in this particular case the intermediate form would be eminently liable to the inroads of closely allied forms existing on both sides of it.

From this cause alone the intermediate varieties will be liable to accidental extermination; and during the process of further modification through natural selection, they will almost certainly be beaten and supplanted by the forms which they connect; for these from existing in greater numbers will, in the aggregate, present more variation, and thus be further improved through natural selection and gain further advantages.

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Now, in the words of the writer before quoted--the learned doctor himself nowhere puts it so concisely: "A man inclosed in such a closet could neither see nor be seen; neither hear nor be heard; neither feel nor be felt; neither live nor die, for both life and death are processes which can take place only where there is force, and in empty space no force could exist." Are these the awful conditions (some will ask) under which the friends of the lost are to think of them as existing, and doomed forever to exist?

View in context

Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and tried course of human affairs.

If any fund could have been selected and appropriated, equal to and not greater than the object, it would have been inadequate to the discharge of the existing debts of the particular States, and would have left them dependent on the Union for a provision for this purpose.

View in context

In Germany the petty-bourgeois class, a relic of the sixteenth century, and since then constantly cropping up again under various forms, is the real social basis of the existing state of things.

To preserve this class is to preserve the existing state of things in Germany.

View in context

If I were a naturalist, I would tell him that, according to some illustrious men of science, nature has furnished us with instances upon the earth of animals existing under very varying conditions of life; that fish respire in a medium fatal to other animals; that amphibious creatures possess a double existence very difficult of explanation; that certain denizens of the seas maintain life at enormous depths, and there support a pressure equal to that of fifty or sixty atmospheres without being crushed; that several aquatic insects, insensible to temperature, are met with equally among boiling springs and in the frozen plains of the Polar Sea; in fine, that we cannot help recognizing in nature a diversity of means of operation oftentimes incomprehensible, but not the less real.