essential

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Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɪˈsɛn.ʃəl/, [əˈsɛn.tʃəl]

Adjective

essential

1. Necessary.

   Synonyms: indispensable, Thesaurus:requisite

   Antonyms: accidental, accessorial, incidental, unnecessary, unneeded

2. Very important; of high importance.

   Synonyms: crucial, Thesaurus:important

   Antonyms: unimportant, Thesaurus:insignificant

3. (biology) necessary for survival but not synthesize by the organism, thus needing to be ingested
4. Being in the basic form; showing its essence.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:intrinsic, Thesaurus:bare-bones

   Antonyms: adscititious, Thesaurus:extrinsic

   Don’t mind him being grumpy. That’s the essential Fred.

5. Really existing; existent.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:existent

   Antonyms: Thesaurus:inexistent

6. (geometry) Such that each complementary region is irreducible, the boundary of each complementary region is incompressible by disks and monogons in the complementary region, and no leaf is a sphere or a torus bounding a solid torus in the manifold.

7. (medicine) Idiopathic.

Antonyms

• inessential, unessential, non-essential, nonessential

Translations

• German: essenziell, notwendig, unverzichtbar
• Portuguese: essencial
• Russian: необходи́мый
• Spanish: esencial

Translations

• French: indispensable
• German: wesentlich, unentbehrlich, unverzichtbar
• Portuguese: essencial
• Russian: ва́жный

Translations

• French: essentiel, fondamental
• Portuguese: essencial, fundamental
• Russian: основно́й

Noun

essential (plural essentials)

1. A necessary ingredient.
2. A fundamental ingredient.

Related terms

• essence

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