necessity

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Pronunciation

• IPA: /nɪˈsɛsəti/

Noun

necessity

1. The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.

   I bought a new table out of necessity. My old one was ruined.

2. The condition of being needy; desperate need; lack
3. Something necessary; a requisite; something indispensable.
   • 20th century, Tenzin Gyatso (attributed)

     Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.

   A tent is a necessity if you plan on camping.
4. Something which makes an act or an event unavoidable; an irresistible force; overruling power
   • 1804, Wordsworth, The Small Celandine

     I stopped, and said with inly muttered voice,

     'It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:

     This neither is its courage nor its choice,

     But its necessity in being old.

5. The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism.
6. (legal) Greater utilitarian good; used in justification of a criminal act.

   doctrine of necessity

7. (legal, in the plural) Indispensable requirements (of life).

Synonyms

• (state of being necessary) inevitability, certainty

Antonyms

• (state of being necessary) impossibility, contingency
• (something indispensable) luxury

Related terms

• necessary
• necessariness
• necessitate
• necessitation
• necessitative
• necessitousness
• necessitude

Translations

• French: nécessité
• German: Notwendigkeit, Nezessität
• Italian: necessità
• Portuguese: necessidade
• Russian: необходи́мость
• Spanish: necesidad, menester

Translations

• Portuguese: necessidade

Translations

• Portuguese: necessidade

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