Necessities

1 definition found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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.
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     2. The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing
        need; indigence; want.
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              Urge the necessity and state of times. --Shak.
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              The extreme poverty and necessity his majesty was
              in.                                   --Clarendon.
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     3. That which is necessary; a necessary; a requisite;
        something indispensable; -- often in the plural.
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              These should be hours for necessities,
              Not for delights.                     --Shak.
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              What was once to me
              Mere matter of the fancy, now has grown
              The vast necessity of heart and life. --Tennyson.
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     4. That which makes an act or an event unavoidable;
        irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical
        or moral; fate; fatality.
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              So spake the fiend, and with necessity,
              The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.
                                                    --Milton.
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     5. (Metaph.) The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the
        subjection of all phenomena, whether material or
        spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism.
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     {Of necessity}, by necessary consequence; by compulsion, or
        irresistible power; perforce.
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     Syn: See {Need}.
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