necessity
Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary
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[edit] English
Part or all of this page has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
[edit] Etymology
< Middle English necessite < Old French necessite < Latin necessitas (“‘unavoidableness, compulsion, exigency, necessity’”) < necesse (“‘unavoidable, inevitable’”); see necessary.
[edit] Pronunciation
- IPA: /nɪˈsɛsəti/, SAMPA: /nI"sEs@ti/
- Audio (US)help, file
[edit] Noun
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Singular |
Plural |
necessity (plural necessities)
- The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite; inevitableness; indispensableness.
- The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want.
- That which is necessary; a necessary; a requisite; something indispensable; -- often in the plural.
- Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. - Tenzin Gyatso
- That which makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality.
- The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism.
[edit] Antonyms
- contingency
- possibility
- (something indispensable): luxury
[edit] Derived terms
Terms derived from "necessity"
[edit] Related terms
Terms etymologically related to "necessity"
[edit] Translations
quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite; inevitableness; indispensableness
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ondition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want
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that which is necessary; a necessary; a requisite; something indispensable
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that which makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality.
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the negation of freedom in voluntary action
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked
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[edit] External links
- necessity in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- necessity in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
