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necessity

[nuh-ses-i-tee]
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SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR necessity ON THESAURUS.COM

noun, plural ne·ces·si·ties.

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RELATED WORDS

requirement, precondition, prerequisite, fundamental, obligation, essential, urgency, claim, privation, essence, inexorableness, demand, want, call, imperative, compulsion, cause, exaction, duress, exigency

Nearby words

  1. necessitarianism,
  2. necessitate,
  3. necessitation,
  4. necessitous,
  5. necessitude,
  6. necessity is the mother of invention,
  7. nechako,
  8. neches,
  9. necho,
  10. neck

Idioms

    of necessity, as an inevitable result; unavoidably; necessarily: Our trip to China must of necessity be postponed for a while.

Origin of necessity

1325–75; Middle English necessite < Latin necessitās, equivalent to necess(e) needful + -itās -ity
Related formsnon·ne·ces·si·ty, noun, plural non·ne·ces·si·ties.su·per·ne·ces·si·ty, noun, plural su·per·ne·ces·si·ties.

Synonym study

3. See need.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for necessities

British Dictionary definitions for necessities

necessity

noun plural -ties

(sometimes plural) something needed for a desired result; prerequisitenecessities of life
a condition or set of circumstances, such as physical laws or social rules, that inevitably requires a certain resultit is a matter of necessity to wear formal clothes when meeting the Queen
the state or quality of being obligatory or unavoidable
urgent requirement, as in an emergency or misfortunein time of necessity we must all work together
poverty or want
rare compulsion through laws of nature; fate
philosophy
  1. a condition, principle, or conclusion that cannot be otherwise
  2. the constraining force of physical determinants on all aspects of lifeCompare freedom (def. 8)
logic
  1. the property of being necessary
  2. a statement asserting that some property is essential or statement is necessarily true
  3. the operator that indicates that the expression it modifies is true in all possible worldsUsual symbol: □, ∟
of necessity inevitably; necessarily
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for necessities

necessity

n.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Idioms and Phrases with necessities

necessity

In addition to the idiom beginning with necessity

  • necessity is the mother of invention

also see:

  • make a virtue of necessity
  • of necessity
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.