How to Use raison d'être in a Sentence

raison d'être

noun
  • Art is his raison d'être.
  • But such slashing doesn't seem to be the firm's raison d'etre.
    — Michelle Jarboe, cleveland.com, 25 Feb. 2018
  • His wife, six children, their spouses, and his fifteen grandchildren were his raison d'etre.
    — courant.com, 22 June 2019
  • Now the group has been joined by Noam -- a religious party that's main raison d'etre seems to be homophobia.
    — Sam Kiley, CNN, 22 Feb. 2021
  • Best of Beauty is Allure's north star, our our raison d'etre, our Super Bowl.
    — Allure Editors, Allure, 18 Sep. 2020
  • This is yet another example of why this is an amazing time to be following the launch industry and the raison d'etre for this newsletter.
    — Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 22 June 2018
  • The former's raison d'etre while alive and legacy going forward is all about fear, punishment, repression and ancient cruelties.
    — Melik Kaylan, Forbes, 17 Aug. 2022
  • The disproportionate burden borne by the disadvantaged is the raison d'etre of his foundation.
    — Annie Brown, Forbes, 22 Sep. 2021
  • Their latest venture is the boy band known as NCT, which seemingly has no boundaries and will result in multiple sub-groups, each with their own distinct raison d'etre.
    — Tamar Herman, Billboard, 4 July 2018
  • Surely Lisa's raison d'etre can't all be in their first-date scene, when she is made to mouth a shameless amount of historical background to the Iraq war to jog the audience's memory.
    — Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Dec. 2017
  • Finally, fascist states are prone to wars, because members of the secret police and generals, whose raison d'etre is violence, are overrepresented in the ruling elite.
    — Alexander Motyl, The Conversation, 30 Mar. 2022
  • As described by Corrections, evidence pointing to Bruton as a contraband courier formed the checkpoint's raison d'etre.
    — David J. Neal, miamiherald, 26 Apr. 2018
  • In 2016, Son decided to make repeating that magic SoftBank’s raison d'etre.
    — William Pesek, Forbes, 13 May 2022
  • For Houthis, a new purpose The Israel-Gaza conflict has reinvigorated the Houthis – giving them a raison d'etre at a time when their status at home was diminishing.
    — Mahad Darar, The Conversation, 12 Jan. 2024
  • The Environmental Protection Agency's entire raison d'etre, for instance, is safeguarding the environment.
    — Samuel Gregg, Star Tribune, 27 Jan. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'raison d'être.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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