Necessity.
Synonyms:
| compulsion, | fatality, | requisite, |
| destiny, | fate, | sine qua non, |
| emergency, | indispensability, | unavoidableness, |
| essential, | indispensableness, | urgency, |
| exigency, | need, | want. |
| extremity, | requirement, | |
Necessity is the quality of being necessary, or the quality of that which can not but be, become, or be true, or be accepted as true. Need and want always imply a lack; necessity may be used in this sense, but in the higher philosophical sense necessity simply denotes the exclusion of any alternative either in thought or fact; righteousness is a necessity (not a need) of the divine nature. Need suggests the possibility of supplying the deficiency which want expresses; to speak of a person's want of decision merely points out a weakness in his character; to say that he has need of decision implies that he can exercise or attain it. As applied to a deficiency, necessity is more imperative than need; a weary person is in need of rest; when rest becomes a necessity he has no choice but to stop work. An essential is something, as a quality, or element, that belongs to the essence of something else so as to be inseparable from it in its normal condition, or in any complete idea or statement of it. Compare NECESSARY; PREDESTINATION.
Antonyms:
| choice, | doubt, | dubiousness, | freedom, | possibility, |
| contingency, | doubtfulness, | fortuity, | option, | uncertainty. |
Prepositions:
The necessity of surrender; a necessity for action; this is a necessity to me.