requirement
Americannoun
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something demanded or imposed as an obligation
Latin is no longer a requirement for entry to university
-
a thing desired or needed
-
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:
But you should only consider that a genuine perk if you meet that requirement through your normal spending.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 29, 2026
Advocates expect the language requirement to be challenged in court if it remains unchanged when the rules are finalized.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2026
The bulk of the settlement concerns the law’s requirement that drivers are paid for time spent on the app between deliveries, known as “on-call time.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
The bulk of the settlement—DoorDash’s $83 million payment—concerns the law’s requirement that drivers are paid for time spent on the app between deliveries, known as “on-call time.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026
Furthermore, the hydrogen-bonding requirement meant that adenine would always pair with thymine, while guanine could pair only with cytosine.
From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson
It highlighted breaches of "the requirements for appropriate risk management and the legal obligations relating to the prevention of money laundering".
From Barron's ● Sep. 29, 2026
Medicare Advantage plans offer extra benefits such as vision and dental coverage and cap annual out-of-pocket costs but have a limited choice of doctors and extra requirements for specialist referrals.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 29, 2026
Instead the tool will serve up the candidates that best match a recruiter’s requirements, according to Shapero.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
Foreign financial firms have long complained that regulatory barriers, licensing requirements and concerns over exit bans make it difficult to expand in China, even when market access is technically allowed.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
The genesis of proteins was thus perfectly synchronized with the requirements of the environment: supply the correct sugar, and a set of sugar-metabolizing genes would be turned on together.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
