necessity
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English [edit]
Part or all of this entry 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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
Etymology [edit]
From Middle English necessite, from Old French necessite, from Latin necessitas (“unavoidableness, compulsion, exigency, necessity”), from necesse (“unavoidable, inevitable”); see necessary.
Pronunciation [edit]
Noun [edit]
necessity (plural necessities)
- The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.
- I bought a new table out of necessity. My old one was ruined.
- The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want.
- That which is necessary; a requisite; something indispensable.
- A tent is a necessity if you plan on camping.
- 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.
- (law) Greater utilitarian good; used in justification of a criminal act.
- (law, in the plural) Indispensable requirements (of life).
Antonyms [edit]
- contingency
- possibility
- (something indispensable): luxury
Derived terms [edit]
Terms derived from "necessity"
Related terms [edit]
Terms etymologically related to "necessity"
Translations [edit]
quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite
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condition of being needy or necessitous
that which is necessary
that which makes an act or an event unavoidable
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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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External links [edit]
- necessity in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- necessity in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
