necessitynoun
uk/nəˈses.ə.ti/us/nəˈses.ə.t̬i/C1 [ U ] the need for something:
You can come early if you want to, but there's no necessity for it.
[ + to infinitive ] Is there any necessity to reply to her letter?
The report stresses the necessity of eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.
With a personal fortune of sixty million dollars, she certainly doesn't work out of necessity (= because she needs to).
We'll employ extra staff to help out as and when the necessity arises (= when we need to).
C1 [ C ] something that you need, especially in order to live:
We brought only the bare necessities with us.
He regarded music as one of life's necessities.
More examples
- Eating is a biological necessity!
- I took the job out of necessity because we had no money left.
- With a courage born of necessity, she seized the gun and ran at him.
- I had a couple of months to spare between jobs so I thought I'd make a virtue of necessity by acquiring a few new skills.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Essential or necessary
- a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do idiom
- basically
- basis
- be a question of doing sth idiom
- business-critical
- dependence
- if/when push comes to shove idiom
- imply
- incumbent
- indispensable
- inherent
- integral
- needed
- needful
- occasion
- on a need-to-know basis idiom
- owe
- owe it to yourself idiom
- underlying
- warrant
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Idiom(s)
necessity is the mother of invention