Necessity
Pronunciation
- IPA: /nɪˈsɛsəti/
Origin
From Middle English necessite, from Old French necessite, from Latin necessitas ("unavoidableness, compulsion, exigency, necessity"), from necesse ("unavoidable, inevitable"); see necessary.
Full definition of necessity
Noun
necessity
(plural necessities)- (quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite) The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.
- 2013-06-28, Joris Luyendijk, Our banks are out of control, Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic …. Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. … But the scandals kept coming, …. A broad section of the political class now recognises the need for change but remains unable to see the necessity of a fundamental overhaul.
- 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.
- Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
- A tent is a necessity if you plan on camping.
- That which makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality.
- 1804, Wordsworth, I stopped, and said with inly muttered voice,'It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:This neither is its courage nor its choice,But its necessity in being old.
- The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism.
- (legal) Greater utilitarian good; used in justification of a criminal act.
- (legal, in the plural) Indispensable requirements (of life).
Synonyms
- (state of being necessary) inevitability, certainty
Antonyms
- (state of being necessary) impossibility, contingency
- (something indispensable) luxury