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necessity

noun

Simple meaning

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

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

nuhsehsuhtee

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

nəˈsɛsəti

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.

  2. Something necessary; a requisite; something indispensable.

  3. The condition of being essential or indispensable

  4. The condition of being needy; desperate need; lack.

  5. Something which makes an act or an event unavoidable; an irresistible force; overruling power.

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

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
General and technical use

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.

Used this way, necessity is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use necessity

  • “Water is a basic necessity for all living things to survive.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Necessary

absolute necessity

Negation

economic necessity

Other combinations

military necessitypolitical necessitypractical necessitylogical necessity

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • necessaryadjectiveDerived adjective

    Absolutely essential.

  • necessarilyadverbDerived adverb

    In an essential manner.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • of necessityadverbCompound term

    In such a manner as could not be otherwise.

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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.