nonexistent

adjective

non·​ex·​is·​tent ˌnän-ig-ˈzi-stənt 

: not in actual or present occurrence : not existing

… historical accounts of the first Thanksgiving are almost nonexistent …

—Jasper White

Water was often a luxury, bathrooms were nonexistent, the food was often suspect.

—Noel Vietmeyer

Although brain size and organization became basically modern at least 100,000 years ago, with the robust Neanderthals, their advances in tool-making were slight, their self-expression through art virtually nonexistent.

—John Noble Wilford

Synonyms of nonexistent

• absent
• lacking

Examples of nonexistent in a Sentence

our perennially nonexistent computer tech is, once again, not here today

Recent Examples on the Web

Relationships are steady, nonexistent, or teed up for the long-term. — Ben Travers, IndieWire, 5 Aug. 2026

West Nile Virus is most commonly spread by infected mosquitoes, and symptoms are often mild or nonexistent. — Finch Walker, USA Today, 4 Aug. 2026

The economics are even more challenging in rural America, where private school options are often nonexistent. — Richard Fowler, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2026

Federal judges have found that the government filed statements generated by artificial intelligence that referenced nonexistent case law, wrote briefs that ignored facts and filed declarations with inaccurate dates, the ProPublica review shows. — J. David McSwane, ProPublica, 28 July 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1646, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for nonexistent

• coexistent
• equidistant
• inconsistent
• preexistent
• assistant
• consistent
• existent
• insistent
• persistent
• resistant
• subsistent
• distant