requirement
Americannoun
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something demanded or imposed as an obligation
Latin is no longer a requirement for entry to university
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a thing desired or needed
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the act or an instance of requiring
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
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of requirement
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.
Vocabulary lists containing requirement
Academic Vocabulary Toolkit 1, Words 81-90
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Supreme Court healthcare ruling
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"Building Design and Construction Handbook," Vocabulary from Section 1
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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.
See Examples For:
You may be solving for a requirement that has more flexibility than the front line let on.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 27, 2026
Wrexham council said, since these investigations 20 years ago, ongoing monitoring had not identified any significant changes and there was no statutory requirement for remediation.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
That requirement made the technique difficult to use widely and created an especially large obstacle for efforts to image "dynamical" wavefunctions as three-dimensional videos at atomic scales.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 24, 2026
I assumed I’d just get an exemption to avoid the Canvas Learning Management System requirement.
From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2026
A study indicates that whether or not a department has a mathematics or a statistics requirement is the most important single determinant of where a woman will attend graduate school to study political science.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
The governor said he was reluctant to impose “rigid” reporting requirements on the development of “this critically important digital infrastructure.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2026
“IT leaders are actively cutting costs in traditional services and routine hardware refreshes to fund the massive processing requirements of AI, particularly infrastructure and data foundation work.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Given that this was a $42,000 project, the requirements as set out in the contract are directly relevant.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 28, 2026
"Every species has different habitat requirements, has its own particular behavioral tendencies and faces unique threats. Effective conservation requires that we understand the particular challenges that each species faces."
From Science Daily ● Aug. 28, 2026
He was unaided and easily condemned by a system that was inattentive to the precise legal requirements of capital punishment.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
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.
