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necessity |
2 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Necessity \Ne*ces"si*ty\, n.; pl {Necessities}. [OE. necessite, F. n['e]cessit['e], L. necessitas fr necesse See {Necessary}.] 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. --Shak. The extreme poverty and necessity his majesty was in --Clarendon. 3. That which is necessary; a necessary; a requisite; something indispensable; -- often in the plural. These should be hours for necessities, Not for delights. --Shak. What was once to me Mere matter of the fancy, now has grown The vast necessity of heart and life. --Tennyson. 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. --Milton. 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. Syn: See {Need}. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: necessity n 1: the condition of being essential or indispensable 2: 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" [syn: {essential}, {requirement}, {requisite}, {necessary}] [ant: {inessential}]
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