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/nəsˈɛsəti/ /nəsˈɛsɪti/ Listen

noun

Necessity n. (pl. necessities)

1.

The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite; inevitableness; indispensableness.

2.

The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want. "Urge the necessity and state of times." "The extreme poverty and necessity his majesty was in."

3.

That which is necessary; a necessary; a requisite; something indispensable; often in the plural. "These should be hours for necessities, Not for delights." "What was once to me Mere matter of the fancy, now has grown The vast necessity of heart and life."

4.

That which makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality. "So spake the fiend, and with necessity, The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds."

5.

(Metaph.) The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism.

Of necessity, by necessary consequence; by compulsion, or irresistible power; perforce.

Synonyms: See Need.

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Etymology of 'Necessity'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Necessity" Quotes from Famous Books

... Destiny. — N. destiny &c. (necessity) 601; future existence, post existence; hereafter; future state, next world, world to come, after life; futurity &c. 121; everlasting life, everlasting death; life beyond the grave, world beyond the grave; prospect &c. (expectation) ...

— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... Livingstone laboring under a worse attack of illness than any he had ever had before. For ten weeks to come his situation was as painful as can be conceived. A continual cough, night and day, the most distressing weakness, inability to walk, yet the necessity of moving on, or rather of being moved on, in a kind of litter arranged by Mohamad Bogharib,—where, with his face poorly protected from the sun, he was jolted up and down and sideways, without medicine or food ...

— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... used sometimes to say, and no doubt with reason," she continued, "that in my eagerness for the rest of mankind to do right, I was often in danger of losing sight of such necessity for myself." ...

— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... Doumer who speaks) "of directors and high functionaries of all the ministerial departments." It went to work. It heard "a great number of witnesses." It also showed conclusively "how complex was the question, and how urgent the necessity of ...

— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... from Heaven for thy salvation; I took upon Me thy miseries; not necessity, but charity, drawing Me thereto, that thou thyself mightest learn patience, and ...

— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge

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