Exist
Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words [1]
primarily, "to make a beginning" (hupo, "under," arche, "a beginning"), denotes "to be, to be in existence," involving an "existence" or condition both previous to the circumstances mentioned and continuing after it. This is important in Philippians 2:6 , concerning the deity of Christ. The phrase "being (existing) in the form (morphe, the essential and specific form and character) of God," carries with it the two facts of the antecedent Godhood of Christ, previous to His incarnation, and the continuance of His Godhood at and after the event of His Birth (see Gifford, on the Incarnation, pp. 11, sqq.). It is translated "exist" in 1—Corinthians 11:18 , RV, for AV, "there be." Cp. Luke 16:14; 23:50; Acts 2:30; 3:2; 17:24; 22:3 etc. See Being , Goods , Live , Possess , Substance.
Webster's Dictionary [2]
(1): ( v. i.) To be as a fact and not as a mode; to have an actual or real being, whether material or spiritual.
(2): ( v. i.) To live; to have life or the functions of vitality; as, men can not exist water, nor fishes on land.
(3): ( v. i.) To be manifest in any manner; to continue to be; as, great evils existed in his reign.
