unnecessary
Americanadjective
noun
-
unnecessaries
plural
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of unnecessary
Explanation
Anything that is extra or not needed is unnecessary. Wearing long underwear in July is an unnecessary precaution against being cold. If you don't need something, it's unnecessary. You take an unnecessary risk if you get in the car and don't bother to fasten your seatbelt. Driving your car when you could ride a bike instead is an unnecessary use of gasoline. If you keep dropping you pen in class, your teacher might say, "That's unnecessary." Walking your dog with two leashes is definitely unnecessary. That's obvious, but lots of times it's hard to tell what's necessary and what's unnecessary.
Vocabulary lists containing unnecessary
List 3
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List 9
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"New Michigan Graduation Requirements Shortchange Many Students"
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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:
The government has been ramping up its investigations of improper care — such as leaving patients in unnecessary pain, signing people up without their consent or failing to properly screen and train employees.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
“These are sensible, targeted reforms that remove unnecessary friction from the U.K. IPO process,” said Inigo Esteve, a capital markets partner at law firm White & Case.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
To be sure, Medicaid fraud, waste and abuse – such as providers billing Medicaid for services that are unnecessary or never rendered – are very real problems that cost taxpayers billions of dollars annually.
From Salon ● Aug. 5, 2026
Chamber of Commerce is urging an extension of TPS for Haitian nationals “to prevent significant disruption to America’s workforce and avoid an unnecessary humanitarian crisis.”
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026
He stayed there, exposed to the sun and the rain, as if the thongs were unnecessary, for a dominion superior to any visible bond kept him tied to the trunk of the chestnut tree.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
There are some great songs on it, but they're smothered in unnecessaries that made it really cloudy.
From The Guardian ● May 23, 2013
She has the air of somebody who has reached a point in her life where she is dispensing with the unnecessaries.
From Time Magazine Archive
Boroskie, thou art a Knave; it contains nothing But rubbish from the other rooms and unnecessaries: Will't please you see a strange Clock?
From Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10): The Loyal Subject by Beaumont, Francis
No mission chest piously outfitted at home ever carried to the remote heathen a more useless assortment of unnecessaries than this one brought to me.
From The Portal of Dreams by Buck, Charles Neville
We also had enough unnecessaries to bring us to grief in a couple of weeks.
From Tracks of a Rolling Stone by Coke, Henry J. (Henry John)
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.
