necessarily
Americanadverb
-
by or of necessity; as a matter of compulsion or requirement.
You don't necessarily have to attend.
-
as a necessary, logical, or inevitable result.
That conclusion doesn't necessarily follow.
adverb
-
as an inevitable or natural consequence
girls do not necessarily like dolls
-
as a certainty
he won't necessarily come
Etymology
Origin of necessarily
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; necessary, -ly
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It isn’t necessarily all connected, but it doesn’t matter.
From Los Angeles Times
"The Duffer Brothers did a good job of giving the audience what we needed, maybe not necessarily what we wanted."
From BBC
These stocks won’t necessarily rebound in the first few trading days of the year.
From MarketWatch
January is an optimistic time of year for investors, but not necessarily for corporate America.
From Barron's
What’s been good for Micron Technology and its fellow memory suppliers isn’t necessarily great for the rest of the technology world.
From MarketWatch
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
