Meaning
The core purpose or justification for someone's or something's existence; the reason a person, group, or institution is felt to matter. It is a formal, elevated phrase, usually reserved for weighty contexts such as mission statements or vocations. Some writers loosely use it as a synonym for a plain reason or purpose, a drift that usage authorities since Fowler in 1926 have criticised. Formal and slightly literary; frequent in corporate and institutional mission-speak, where it can sound pretentious. Regional use: General English (borrowed from French).
Origin
French for 'reason of being': raison 'reason' (from Latin ratio) plus etre 'to be, being' (from Latin esse). The expression is ordinary French for the purpose or justification of a thing. English borrowed it in the mid-19th century: the Oxford English Dictionary's earliest citation is a letter of 18 March 1864 by the philosopher John Stuart Mill ('modes of speech which have a real raison d'etre'), and Merriam-Webster likewise dates the first known use to 1864. It has stayed current in educated English ever since, and modern style guides such as The Chicago Manual of Style see no need to italicise it.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- raison d' etat
- raisons d'etre
Usage Examples
- Volunteering at the shelter became her raison d'etre after retirement.
- The report argues that the museum's founding raison d'etre, free public education, has been quietly abandoned.
- Profit was never the company's raison d'etre; it existed to make solar technology affordable.