Necessity — Defs

01 n. The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite; inevitableness; indispensableness.

pl. Necessities ((#))

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

Phrases & compounds

Of necessity — by necessary consequence; by compulsion, or irresistible power; perforce.

Syn. See Need.