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; see origin at necessary, -ly
Explanation
Use the adverb necessarily to mean inevitably. The best man won't necessarily have to speak at the wedding reception, but he should probably have a speech ready just in case. Necessarily also means as a logical result or consequence of some action. Your English composition grade is necessarily based on the work you turn in for the class. If you write fairly well, you won't necessarily get an A, but you just might. Necessarily is made up of the Latin roots ne, meaning not, and cedere, meaning yield. The adjective "necessary," from which necessarily comes, originally meant no backing away.
Vocabulary lists containing necessarily
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
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SHSAT: Language of the Test
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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.
The central frustration isn’t necessarily that a man can’t find the right box of pasta.
From Salon ● Oct. 25, 2026
More broadly, the findings highlight an important principle of animal evolution: physical structure does not necessarily determine the full range of movements an animal can perform.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 24, 2026
While the term is not necessarily a racial slur in Hebrew, the remark drew widespread condemnation from opposition politicians and from Netanyahu himself.
From Barron's ● Oct. 24, 2026
He proposes “a more deeply philosophical optimism that does not necessarily make you happier or more cheerful, although . . . it should.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026
One mistake is the argument that discovery claims are necessarily retrospective because ‘discovery’ is an ‘achievement word’, like checkmate in chess.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
