See raison d'être in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for raison d'être meaning in English (9.0kB)
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "fr",
"3": "raison d'être",
"lit": "reason to be"
},
"expansion": "French raison d’être (literally “reason to be”)",
"name": "bor"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Borrowed from French raison d’être (literally “reason to be”).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "raisons d'être",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "raison d'être",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "raison d'êtres",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "raisons d'être",
"2": "raison d'être",
"3": "s",
"nolinkhead": "1"
},
"expansion": "raison d'être (plural raisons d'être or raison d'être or raison d'êtres)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Surfing became his raison d’être.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1966, Maurice Godelier, Rationality and irrationality in economics, London, published by Francois Maspero, pg. 317 (quoted in Michael W. Coy, \"Tugen Monopoly: Capitalism and Conflict in the Mountains of Kenya,\" Anthropology & Humanism Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1988, pg. 41, Full article - .pdf)",
"text": "These raison d'etre and this evolution are not merely the achievement of men's conscious activity but are the unintentional results of their social activity."
},
{
"ref": "1968, Joan Didion, “Notes from a Native Daughter”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem",
"text": "It [Sacramento] is a town in which defense industry and its absentee owners are suddenly the most important facts; a town which has never had more people or more money, but has lost its raison d'être.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1970, Alvin Toffler, Future Shock: Bantam Books, page 174",
"text": "One after another, styles supplant one another. The most enduring twentieth-century school, Abstract Expressionism, held sway for at most twenty years, from 1940 to 1960, then to be followed by a wild succession- \"Pop\" lasting perhaps five years, \"Op\" managing to grip the public's attention for two or three years, then the emergence, approximately enough, of 'Kinetic Art' whose very raison d’être is transience.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2003, Seta Fumihiko, Kim Chang-Gi, Lai Shen-Chiang and Onishi Takashi, Abstract for \"A Study on the Transition of National Development Strategies in Korea, Taiwan and Japan, Characterized by Developmentalism\" (「開発主義に特徴付けられた 日本・台湾・韓国の国土開発戦略の変遷についての一考察」), full paper is pp. 52-61 of \"Proceedings\", International Symposium on City Planning 2003, The City Planning Institute of Japan, Sapporo, Japan, Abstract",
"text": "National development plans and programs are in particular under harsh discussions and criticism including these raison d'etre in some countries, for these plans and programs have supported construction of rather inefficient infrastructure in less-development area."
},
{
"ref": "2007, Chambi Chachage, \"Bringing African Studies Back to Africa: Beyond the ‘African-Africanist’ Divides,\" paper prepared for the 2nd AEGIS Conference on African Studies (ECAS) at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, 11-14th July, 2007 (Abstract, Full paper - .doc)",
"text": "With hindsight knowledge, it is interesting to note that these three raison d’etre and their ramifications were situated in a broader context of contestations over the whole enterprise of knowledge production and consumption."
},
{
"ref": "2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Bournemouth (circa 1880)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 60",
"text": "Of course, closure of the West station took away the hotel's raison d'être. In May 2012, the local newspaper reported that this historic hotel, by then rated the town's worst (exemplified by its final review: \"Please avoid at all costs\"), was to be converted into 31 first-time-buyer one-bedroom flats.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Reason for being. The claimed reason for the existence of something or someone; the sole or ultimate purpose of something or someone."
],
"id": "en-raison_d'être-en-noun-FiNGwhMW",
"links": [
[
"reason",
"reason"
],
[
"existence",
"existence"
],
[
"purpose",
"purpose"
]
],
"related": [
{
"word": "be-all and end-all"
},
{
"word": "my everything"
},
{
"word": "raison d'État"
},
{
"word": "ikigai"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "raison d'etre"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ar",
"lang": "Arabic",
"roman": "sabab al-wujūd",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "سَبَب الْوُجُود"
},
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "raó de ser"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "cúnzài de lǐyóu",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "存在的理由"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "smysl existence"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "příčina bytí"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "raison d'être"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "smysl bytí"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "raison d'être"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "olemassaolon syy"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "syy olla olemassa"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "tarkoitus"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "raison d’être"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Daseinsberechtigung"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Daseinszweck"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Existenzberechtigung"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Lebensbestimmung"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Lebenszweck"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Lebensinhalt"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "létindok"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "létok"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "létjogosultság"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "ragione d'esistere"
},
{
"alt": "そんざいりゆう",
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "sonzai riyū",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "存在理由"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "ikigai",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "生き甲斐"
},
{
"alt": "存在理由",
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"roman": "jonjaeiyu",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "존재이유"
},
{
"alt": "存在理由",
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"roman": "jonjaeriyu",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"North-Korea"
],
"word": "존재리유"
},
{
"code": "fa",
"lang": "Persian",
"roman": "'ellat-e vojudi",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "علت وجودی"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "racja bytu"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "raison d'être"
},
{
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "rațiune de a fi"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "smysl suščestvovánija",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "смысл существова́ния"
},
{
"code": "sl",
"lang": "Slovene",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "raison d'être"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "razón de ser"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "existensberättigande"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "raison d'être"
},
{
"code": "tl",
"lang": "Tagalog",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "balungkaling"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "varoluş/var olma nedeni/sebebi"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˌɹeɪzɒ̃ ˈdɛtɹə/",
"tags": [
"Received-Pronunciation"
]
},
{
"ipa": "/ˌɹɛzɒ̃ ˈdɛtɹə/",
"tags": [
"Received-Pronunciation"
]
},
{
"audio": "en-uk-raison d'etre.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/27/En-uk-raison_d%27etre.ogg/En-uk-raison_d%27etre.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/En-uk-raison_d%27etre.ogg",
"tags": [
"UK"
],
"text": "Audio (UK)"
}
],
"word": "raison d'être"
}
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "fr",
"3": "raison d'être",
"lit": "reason to be"
},
"expansion": "French raison d’être (literally “reason to be”)",
"name": "bor"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Borrowed from French raison d’être (literally “reason to be”).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "raisons d'être",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "raison d'être",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "raison d'êtres",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "raisons d'être",
"2": "raison d'être",
"3": "s",
"nolinkhead": "1"
},
"expansion": "raison d'être (plural raisons d'être or raison d'être or raison d'êtres)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "be-all and end-all"
},
{
"word": "my everything"
},
{
"word": "raison d'État"
},
{
"word": "ikigai"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms borrowed from French",
"English terms derived from French",
"English terms spelled with Ê",
"English terms spelled with ◌̂",
"English terms with IPA pronunciation",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Surfing became his raison d’être.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1966, Maurice Godelier, Rationality and irrationality in economics, London, published by Francois Maspero, pg. 317 (quoted in Michael W. Coy, \"Tugen Monopoly: Capitalism and Conflict in the Mountains of Kenya,\" Anthropology & Humanism Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1988, pg. 41, Full article - .pdf)",
"text": "These raison d'etre and this evolution are not merely the achievement of men's conscious activity but are the unintentional results of their social activity."
},
{
"ref": "1968, Joan Didion, “Notes from a Native Daughter”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem",
"text": "It [Sacramento] is a town in which defense industry and its absentee owners are suddenly the most important facts; a town which has never had more people or more money, but has lost its raison d'être.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1970, Alvin Toffler, Future Shock: Bantam Books, page 174",
"text": "One after another, styles supplant one another. The most enduring twentieth-century school, Abstract Expressionism, held sway for at most twenty years, from 1940 to 1960, then to be followed by a wild succession- \"Pop\" lasting perhaps five years, \"Op\" managing to grip the public's attention for two or three years, then the emergence, approximately enough, of 'Kinetic Art' whose very raison d’être is transience.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2003, Seta Fumihiko, Kim Chang-Gi, Lai Shen-Chiang and Onishi Takashi, Abstract for \"A Study on the Transition of National Development Strategies in Korea, Taiwan and Japan, Characterized by Developmentalism\" (「開発主義に特徴付けられた 日本・台湾・韓国の国土開発戦略の変遷についての一考察」), full paper is pp. 52-61 of \"Proceedings\", International Symposium on City Planning 2003, The City Planning Institute of Japan, Sapporo, Japan, Abstract",
"text": "National development plans and programs are in particular under harsh discussions and criticism including these raison d'etre in some countries, for these plans and programs have supported construction of rather inefficient infrastructure in less-development area."
},
{
"ref": "2007, Chambi Chachage, \"Bringing African Studies Back to Africa: Beyond the ‘African-Africanist’ Divides,\" paper prepared for the 2nd AEGIS Conference on African Studies (ECAS) at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, 11-14th July, 2007 (Abstract, Full paper - .doc)",
"text": "With hindsight knowledge, it is interesting to note that these three raison d’etre and their ramifications were situated in a broader context of contestations over the whole enterprise of knowledge production and consumption."
},
{
"ref": "2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Bournemouth (circa 1880)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 60",
"text": "Of course, closure of the West station took away the hotel's raison d'être. In May 2012, the local newspaper reported that this historic hotel, by then rated the town's worst (exemplified by its final review: \"Please avoid at all costs\"), was to be converted into 31 first-time-buyer one-bedroom flats.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Reason for being. The claimed reason for the existence of something or someone; the sole or ultimate purpose of something or someone."
],
"links": [
[
"reason",
"reason"
],
[
"existence",
"existence"
],
[
"purpose",
"purpose"
]
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˌɹeɪzɒ̃ ˈdɛtɹə/",
"tags": [
"Received-Pronunciation"
]
},
{
"ipa": "/ˌɹɛzɒ̃ ˈdɛtɹə/",
"tags": [
"Received-Pronunciation"
]
},
{
"audio": "en-uk-raison d'etre.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/27/En-uk-raison_d%27etre.ogg/En-uk-raison_d%27etre.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/En-uk-raison_d%27etre.ogg",
"tags": [
"UK"
],
"text": "Audio (UK)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "raison d'etre"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ar",
"lang": "Arabic",
"roman": "sabab al-wujūd",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "سَبَب الْوُجُود"
},
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "raó de ser"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "cúnzài de lǐyóu",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "存在的理由"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "smysl existence"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "příčina bytí"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "raison d'être"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "smysl bytí"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "raison d'être"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "olemassaolon syy"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "syy olla olemassa"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "tarkoitus"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "raison d’être"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Daseinsberechtigung"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Daseinszweck"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Existenzberechtigung"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Lebensbestimmung"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Lebenszweck"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Lebensinhalt"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "létindok"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "létok"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "létjogosultság"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "ragione d'esistere"
},
{
"alt": "そんざいりゆう",
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "sonzai riyū",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "存在理由"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "ikigai",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "生き甲斐"
},
{
"alt": "存在理由",
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"roman": "jonjaeiyu",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "존재이유"
},
{
"alt": "存在理由",
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"roman": "jonjaeriyu",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"North-Korea"
],
"word": "존재리유"
},
{
"code": "fa",
"lang": "Persian",
"roman": "'ellat-e vojudi",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "علت وجودی"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "racja bytu"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "raison d'être"
},
{
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "rațiune de a fi"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "smysl suščestvovánija",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "смысл существова́ния"
},
{
"code": "sl",
"lang": "Slovene",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "raison d'être"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "razón de ser"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "existensberättigande"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "raison d'être"
},
{
"code": "tl",
"lang": "Tagalog",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "balungkaling"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "reason for being",
"word": "varoluş/var olma nedeni/sebebi"
}
],
"word": "raison d'être"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.