essential
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Necessary for survival but not synthesized by the organism, thus needing to be ingested.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihsehnshuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪˈsɛnʃəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
biology
Necessary for survival but not synthesized by the organism, thus needing to be ingested.
Being in the basic form; showing its essence.
Very important; of high importance.
Basic and fundamental
Having the nature of essence; not physical.
Really existing; existent.
noun
A necessary ingredient.
A fundamental ingredient.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Necessary for survival but not synthesized by the organism, thus needing to be ingested.
Used this way, essential is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Nearby words
- basal , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Persistent and pathological high blood pressure for which no specific cause can be found.
An oil having the odor or flavor of the plant from which it comes.
The primary form of thrombocytopenia (rather than a shortage of platelets caused by other conditions such as tuberculosis or chemical suppression of bone marrow etc.).
Tremor of unknown cause (usually of the hands and head) that develops in older people.
An amino acid that is required by animals but that they cannot synthesize.
A prerequisite.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Antonyms
adjective
Sense: necessary for survival but not synthesized by the organism
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.