necessity : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: necessity	by the DICT Development Group
2 results for necessity
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
necessity n the condition of being essential or indispensable 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" Synonym(s): necessity, essential, requirement, requisite, necessary Antonym(s): inessential, nonessential
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Necessity \Neces"sity\, n.; pl. {Necessities}. [OE. necessite, F. n[82]cessit[82], 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}.