human condition

English

Pronunciation

  • (Standard Southern British) IPA(key): /hjʉwmənkənˈdɪʃən/, /hjʉwməŋkənˈdɪʃən/
  • Audio (Mid-Atlantic US):(file)

Noun

human condition

  1. (usually preceded by the) What it means to be human; the experiences, characteristics, and limitations of life shared by all humans, as opposed to other lifeforms.
    • 1894, Thomas Hardy, An Imaginative Woman:
      Neither symboliste nor decadent, he was a pessimist in so far as that character applies to a man who looks at the worst contingencies as well as the best in the human condition.
    • 1970 May 18, “Alive and Well”, in Time‎[1], New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC:
      Youth dies. Life hurts. Love warms. Understanding heals. The wounds and balms of the human condition are so commonplace that men eventually experience them without noticing.
      (Can we archive this URL?)
    • 2006, S. Mark Heim, Saved from Sacrifice‎[2], →ISBN, page 8:
      Christian theology traditionally sees three elements of the human condition that are in need of transformation: sin (estrangement from God), evil (estrangement among humans), and death (mortality, and our estrangement from nature).
    • 2023 June 13, Dwight Garner, “Cormac McCarthy, Novelist of a Darker America, Is Dead at 89”, in The New York Times‎[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2 February 2026:
      Mr. McCarthy’s fiction took a dark view of the human condition and was often macabre. He decorated his novels with scalpings, beheadings, arson, rape, incest, necrophilia and cannibalism.

Translations

References

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