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"exist" is also used as a crossword clue. If that's what you saw, the answer is often be (2 letters).
Definitions
have an existence, be extant
Word origin
From French exister, from Latin existō, exsistō (“I am, I exist, appear, arise”), from ex (“out”) + sistere (“to set, place”) (related to stare (“to stand, to be stood”)), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *stísteh₂ti, from the root *steh₂- (“stand”); see stand. Compare assist, consist, desist, insist, persist, resist. Cognate with Spanish existir, French exister, Italian esistere, German existieren.
Used in a sentence
“Cognitive dissonance exists when a person possesses two cognitions, one of which is contradictory to the other”
“Various relationships may exist between character and glyph: […]”
“[…], regardless of whether those characters also existed in other character encoding standards.”
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Used as a crossword answer2 curated clues
01“Be found in reality”5 letters
02“Be real”5 letters
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