requirement

American  

[ri-kwahyuhr-muhnt] / rɪˈkwaɪər mənt /

noun

• requirements
  plural

1. that which is required; a thing demanded or obligatory.

   One of the requirements of the job is accuracy.

2. an act or instance of requiring.

   Synonyms:

   claim, demand, directive, injunction, command, order

3. a need or necessity.

   to meet the requirements of daily life.

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requirement British  

/ rɪˈkwaɪəmənt /

noun

1. something demanded or imposed as an obligation

   Latin is no longer a requirement for entry to university

2. a thing desired or needed

3. the act or an instance of requiring

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requirement Idioms  

1. see meet the requirements.

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Usage

What does requirement mean? A requirement is something that’s mandatory or necessary—it’s something you need to have or need to do. Requirement is most often used in official contexts in which achieving a certain status requires you to perform certain actions or have certain things, such as documents. Example: By passing this class you have now met all of the basic requirements for your major and will be able to walk at graduation in May.

Synonym Usage

Requirement, requisite refer to that which is necessary. A requirement is some quality or performance demanded of a person in accordance with certain fixed regulations: requirements for admission to college. A requisite is not imposed from outside; it is a factor which is judged necessary according to the nature of things, or to the circumstances of the case: Efficiency is a requisite for success in business. Requisite may also refer to a concrete object judged necessary: the requisites for perfect grooming.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonrequirement
  noun
• prerequirement
  noun
• superrequirement
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• requirements
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of requirement

First recorded in 1520–30; require + -ment

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Explanation

Necessary, inescapable, and non-negotiable, a requirement is something that must be done, like the dishes. Speaking politely to your grandparents may be a requirement of living in your parents' house. Requirements can be imposed by an authority. For example, in college, it is usually a requirement that you study math, English, and history, before you go on to get your degree in underwater basket weaving. We can also speak of the requirements of a living system: your body requires water to stay alive; light is a requirement of photosynthesis.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

requirement requirements

I never thought it was a requirement to get married to satisfy other people’s social conventions, especially later in life.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026

After the latest corrections, however, engineers measured an optical error of just 63 nanometers RMS, substantially better than the original requirement.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 17, 2026

Among the measures is the requirement for every new batch of food to be tested, and for flour, rice and cooking oil to be purchased from centralised procurement points only.

From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026

Software that can’t operate in a segmented network will soon be unfit for federal use, and agencies are writing this requirement into future contracts.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026

But because coordination phrases are headless, the harmony is not a requirement of our intuitive grammar, and few of us can consistently pull it off.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

"It's simply, it's a balance between our obligations to other partners and frankly our own... requirements for our own facilities as well."

From Barron's ● Oct. 20, 2026

There are different licensing requirements depending on whether you are letting out a spare room or an entire property on a permanent basis.

From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026

The Lakers waived former first-round pick Dalton Knecht on Monday to reach the NBA’s maximum roster requirements before the season begins this week.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026

Still, there is something peculiar about postponing industry-wide traceability requirements while ordinary shoppers are left scanning their broccoli with smartphones, hoping to learn something useful about where it came from.

From Salon ● Oct. 19, 2026

Of course there were times when a child would initial the charts without actually having fulfilled the requirements.

From "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

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Related Words

• concern
• condition
• demand
• need
• obligation
• precondition
• prerequisite
• provision
• qualification
• specification
• stipulation

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