Necessity
[nɪ'sesɪtɪ] or [nə'sɛsəti]
Definition
(noun.) anything indispensable; 'food and shelter are necessities of life'; 'the essentials of the good life'; 'allow farmers to buy their requirements under favorable conditions'; 'a place where the requisites of water fuel and fodder can be obtained'.
(noun.) the condition of being essential or indispensable.
Typed by Floyd--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite; inevitableness; indispensableness.
(n.) The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want.
(n.) That which is necessary; a necessary; a requisite; something indispensable; -- often in the plural.
(n.) That which makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality.
(n.) The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism.
Typist: Nelly
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. [1]. Compulsion, fatality, fate, destiny, irresistible force.[2]. Indispensableness, indispensability, inevitableness.[3]. Need, needfulness, urgency, exigency, pressing want.[4]. Requirement, requisite, essential, necessary, indispensable thing, SINE QUA NON.
Editor: Noreen
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Indispensableness, inevitableness, need, indigence, requirement, want, fate,destiny
ANT:dispensableness, uncertainty, superfluity, uselessness, competence, affluence,casualty, contingency, freedom, choice
Editor: Thea
Definition
n. state or quality of being necessary: that which is necessary or unavoidable: compulsion: great need: poverty.—ns. Necessitā′rian; Necessitā′rianism necessarianism.—v.t. Necess′itāte to make necessary: to render unavoidable: to compel.—n. Necessitā′tion.—adjs. Necess′itied (Shak.) in a state of want; Necess′itous in necessity: very poor: destitute.—adv. Necess′itously.—n. Necess′itousness.—Natural necessity the condition of being necessary according to the laws of nature; Logical or Mathematical according to those of human intelligence; Moral according to those of moral law; Works of necessity work so necessary as to be allowable on the Sabbath.
Editor: Vlad
Examples
- From these ends is extended the spindle of Necessity, on which all the revolutions turn. Plato. The Republic.
- But when necessity demanded, he could be firm as adamant. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- In the long run, the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- It was expected in case of necessity to connect these forts by rifle-pits. Ulysses S. Grant. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
- I was obliged to recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious interest to me. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- The surplus he holds merely as custodian, and it is passed on to the younger members of the community as necessity demands. Edgar Rice Burroughs. A Princess of Mars.
- Then it was that I worked out my first invention, and necessity was certainly the mother of it. Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
- Another man in his position would have needed some explanation of those words--the Count felt no such necessity. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- Certainly, I answered-- unless I relieve you of all necessity for trying the experiment in the interval. Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone.
- Elinor sighed over the fancied necessity of this; but to a man and a soldier she presumed not to censure it. Jane Austen. Sense and Sensibility.
- But the enemy relieved me from this necessity. Ulysses S. Grant. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
- All the Cainozoic mammals were doing this one thing in common under the urgency of a common necessity; they were all growing brain. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- The necessity for this was due to the many radical variations made from accepted methods. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- A good housewife is of necessity a humbug; and Cornelia's husband was hoodwinked, as Potiphar was--only in a different way. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- To Elizabeth, however, he voluntarily acknowledged that the necessity of his absence _had_ been self-imposed. Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
- As her once elastic walk had become deadened by time, so had her natural pride of life been hindered in its blooming by her necessities. Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native.
- Worldly wise in hard and poor necessities, she was innocent in all things else. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- It seemed like desecration, but then we had traveled far, and our necessities were urgent. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- Obviously, one of the first necessities towards such quantity production is extra speed. Various. The Wonder Book of Knowledge.
- His daily subsistence would be proportioned to his daily necessities. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence. Plato. The Republic.
- He was a mechanic; and, rendered unable to attend to the occupation which supplied his necessities, famine was added to his other miseries. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- In returning to labour in this sequestered spot he had anticipated an escape from the chafing of social necessities; yet behold they were here also. Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native.
- Am I trifling, here, with the necessities of my task? Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- But beside all this, the bulk of our people supported themselves by furnishing the necessities or conveniences of life to the rich and to each other. Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
- That it is apt to be hampered by material necessities or complicated by moral scruples? Edith Wharton. The House of Mirth.
- Mr. Hale was the first to dare to speak of the necessities of the present moment. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- They come out of necessities. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- But hast thou not necessities that I can care for? Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- It is pointed out that Previous inventions failed--necessities for commercial success and accomplishment by Edison. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
Typist: Vance