Ne*ces"si*ty (?), n.;
pl. Necessities (#). [OE. necessite, F. nécessité, L. necessitas, fr. necesse. See Necessary.]
1. The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite;
inevitableness; indispensableness.
2. The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want.
Urge the necessity and state of times.
Shak. The extreme poverty and necessity his majesty was in.
Clarendon. 3. That which is
necessary; a necessary; a requisite; something indispensable; -- often
in the plural.
These should be hours for
necessities,
Not for
delights.
Shak. What was once
to me
Mere matter of the fancy,
now has grown
The vast necessity of heart and
life.
Tennyson.
4. That which makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality.
So spake the fiend, and with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.
Milton.
5. (Metaph.) The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism.
Of necessity, by necessary consequence; by compulsion, or irresistible power; perforce.
Syn. -- See Need.
Hear it pronounced