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What is "necessity"

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necessity
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
necessity
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
the bare essentials/necessities
▪ Her bag was light, packed with only the bare essentials.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
absolute
▪ This is an absolute necessity and to work in defiance of it means total failure.
▪ White gloves and a pillbox hat were absolute necessities.
▪ Design, development and management have in common the absolute necessity of taking action based on incomplete information.
▪ Artificial light is an absolute necessity for the developments of plants.
▪ There are two infestations that are commonly transmitted in this way although there is no absolute necessity for this mode of transmission.
▪ Careful searching of the literature is an absolute necessity in the preparation of any study and solution to problems.
▪ Supplies of liquid helium are an absolute necessity in many modern science laboratories.
bare
▪ Although many people in Esarn are poor, most have the bare necessities.
basic
▪ Food is the basic necessity of life and without it economic progress is impossible.
▪ Rearing a child to maturity requires large expenditures on the basic necessities of life.
▪ For the first time, in many cases, working people were able to purchase more than basic necessities.
▪ Even basic necessities, such as pencils and paper, were often completely lacking.
▪ If a charge is made to some one on income support, this reduces the income available to pay for basic necessities.
▪ Ultimately a growing population of families unable to meet the basic necessities of life invites uncontainable crime and disease.
▪ They were starved of food and basic necessities.
▪ It led all the others, being both a producer of basic necessities and a provider of luxuries.
economic
▪ In the longer term, that particular barrier is likely to disappear through sheer economic necessity on the part of business.
▪ The school board claimed the dis-missals were required by economic necessity.
▪ It was not only a personal benefit, but a social and economic necessity.
▪ Most women are forced through economic necessity to work in part-time low-paid jobs with quite a large number in the black economy.
▪ Educational developments often occur in the wake of economic necessity.
▪ When it's forced upon you by economic necessity it can become a grim affair.
▪ Stalking stags is turned into a sport as an economic necessity as much as anything else.
▪ Marriage was essential for the young working-class girl, indeed an economic necessity, for she could scarcely have survived unmarried.
medical
▪ The exceptions would be driving for school, work, or medical or family necessities.
▪ Exceptions include work, school, medical and family necessities.
military
▪ In lieu of a policy, most political decisions were dictated by military necessity.
other
▪ Supplies of milk, meat and other necessities are running low.
▪ Records of clothing and the other necessities and niceties of life are scanty.
▪ On August 27 they awoke to find that food had gone on ration, as had petrol and many other necessities.
▪ So it was with many others, selling implements, rope and all the other necessities needed by the farming community.
▪ His other necessity in life was solitude.
▪ He needed to do some shopping for cleaning materials and other basic necessities and decided to go.
▪ My grant covered the school fees only, and no provision was made for other necessities.
political
▪ Realizing this, Franco stepped up his arguments in favour of a slow campaign, justifying it as a political necessity.
▪ For a long time she maintained her maiden name until it became a public and political necessity to adopt the surname Clinton.
▪ It was an economic and political necessity.
practical
▪ So international agreement and co-operation is in this field not merely an ideal but a practical necessity for effective justice.
▪ The need for reliability is not only ethically desirable, it is generally a practical necessity.
▪ Certainly marriage was very much a practical necessity for working class girls, and the chief hope was for a good bargain.
▪ Indeed, for many municipalities a concern with cost containment and with stimulating private investment became a practical necessity.
social
▪ It was not only a personal benefit, but a social and economic necessity.
▪ That was a ritualized occasion of the greatest social necessity.
▪ He defends the city as a human and social necessity.
▪ It's a sort of social necessity.
urgent
▪ Policies which address such issues are an urgent necessity.
▪ Plans, in fact, had become an urgent necessity.
▪ The future demands for knowledge on this subject means more research is a real and urgent necessity.
■ VERB
accept
▪ The five had always perhaps accepted the necessity of compromise.
avoid
▪ Such a scheme is simpler as it avoids the necessity for a reduction of share capital.
▪ They avoided the necessity of computing the restricted model by estimating the unrestricted model and testing the restrictions using the Wald test.
▪ It may incorporate a shock-absorbing layer, avoiding the necessity of a mid-sole.
become
▪ Absolute poverty has fallen steadily since the industrial revolution, which is why yesterday's luxuries have become today's necessities.
▪ Early reunification, in short, has become a necessity for the world Trotskyist movement.
▪ At universities, where professors of medicine taught botany, physic gardens became a necessity for the practical study of plants.
▪ In fact, being able to make quick decisions about a whole host of issues becomes a necessity.
▪ The check had become a matter of necessity rather than of choice.
▪ Plans, in fact, had become an urgent necessity.
▪ Suddenly intelligent rock journalism became a necessity.
▪ Educational investments become a defensive necessity.
provide
▪ Although there is never a clean slate on which to start planning, the new start provides the necessity for such planning.
▪ This may seem to provide the basis for necessity.
▪ He provided for us the necessities of life - food, shelter, clothing.
▪ They are consciously trying to redesign a new system for providing many of the necessities of life.
understand
▪ She would at once understand the motive and, however coldly she dealt with me, she would understand the necessity.
▪ Pope thus summarized one possible eighteenth-century understanding of necessity.
▪ The first step is to understand the necessity and scope of the choice that has to be made.
▪ Many of them have come to understand both the necessity and the complexity of bringing various groups together.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
make a virtue of necessity
▪ But Simon does not merely make a virtue of necessity.
▪ But since response from ministers by the 1840s was extremely circumspect the reformers were probably making a virtue of necessity.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A car is an absolute necessity in this town.
▪ Even basic necessities such as pencils and paper were lacking in the school.
▪ For several years, the family was forced to make do with just the bare necessities.
▪ I would say that TV has become more a necessity than a luxury, wouldn't you?
▪ The decision to sell the car was fueled by necessity.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A list made beforehand and ticked off should obviate the necessity for this though.
▪ Economic necessity or opportunity often forces them to make decisions that favor a particular constituency over its counterparts.
▪ In the longer term, that particular barrier is likely to disappear through sheer economic necessity on the part of business.
▪ It will itself exist of necessity, and it will necessarily contain all possibilities in itself.
▪ Of necessity two different ways of measuring the same thing must come to the same conclusion.
▪ Protests were countered by claims of the objective necessity of maintaining financial security.
▪ The court held that necessity was a defence to the claim in trespass and nuisance.
▪ Ultimately a growing population of families unable to meet the basic necessities of life invites uncontainable crime and disease.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Necessity

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.

  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.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
necessity

late 14c., "constraining power of circumstances," from Old French necessité "need, necessity; privation, poverty; distress, torment; obligation, duty" (12c.), from Latin necessitatem (nominative necessitas) "compulsion, need for attention, unavoidableness, destiny," from necesse (see necessary). Meaning "condition of being in need" in English is from late 15c.\n\nNecessity is the Mother of Invention.

[Richard Franck, c.1624-1708, English author and angler, "Northern Memoirs," 1658]

\nTo maken vertu of necessite is in Chaucer. Related: Necessities.
Wiktionary
necessity

n. (senseid en quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite) The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.

Related phrases:
WordNet
necessity

  1. n. the condition of being essential or indispensable

  2. anything indispensable; "food and shelter are necessities of life"; "the essentials of the good life"; "allow farmers to buy their requirements under favorable conditions"; "a place where the requisites of water fuel and fodder can be obtained" [syn: essential, requirement, requisite, necessary] [ant: inessential]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Necessity

In U.S. criminal law, necessity may be either a possible justification or an exculpation for breaking the law. Defendants seeking to rely on this defense argue that they should not be held liable for their actions as a crime because their conduct was necessary to prevent some greater harm and when that conduct is not excused under some other more specific provision of law such as self defense. Except for a few statutory exemptions and in some medical cases there is no corresponding defense in English law for murder.

For example, a drunk driver might contend that he drove his car to get away from a kidnap (cf. North by Northwest). Most common law and civil law jurisdictions recognize this defense, but only under limited circumstances. Generally, the defendant must affirmatively show (i.e., introduce some evidence) that (a) the harm he sought to avoid outweighs the danger of the prohibited conduct he is charged with; (b) he had no reasonable alternative; (c) he ceased to engage in the prohibited conduct as soon as the danger passed; and (d) he did not himself create the danger he sought to avoid. Thus, with the "drunk driver" example cited above, the necessity defense will not be recognized if the defendant drove further than was reasonably necessary to get away from the kidnapper, or if some other reasonable alternative was available to him. However case law suggests necessity is narrowed to medical cases.

Necessity as a defense to criminal acts conducted to meet political ends was rejected in the case of United States v. Schoon. In that case, thirty people, including appellants, gained admittance to the IRS office in Tucson, where they chanted "keep America's tax dollars out of El Salvador," splashed simulated blood on the counters, walls, and carpeting, and generally obstructed the office's operation. The court ruled that the elements of necessity did not exist in this case.

Necessity (tort)

In tort common law, the defense of necessity gives the state or an individual a privilege to take or use the property of another. A defendant typically invokes the defense of necessity only against the intentional torts of trespass to chattels, trespass to land, or conversion. The Latin phrase from common law is necessitas inducit privilegium quod jura privata ("Necessity induces a privilege because of a private right"). A court will grant this privilege to a trespasser when the risk of harm to an individual or society is apparently and reasonably greater than the harm to the property. Unlike the privilege of self-defense, those who are harmed by individuals invoking the necessity privilege are usually free from any wrongdoing. Generally, an individual invoking this privilege is obligated to pay any actual damages caused in the use of the property but not punitive or nominal damages.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "necessity".

Quite the contrary, proper discipline had to be maintained, and in wartime, with pressed men aboard ship, a firm hand was something he deemed a necessity.

Ida had grudgingly accended to the necessity, but had refused to allow one of the instruments in the parlor.

As he said the last words my converter rose, and went to the window to dry his tears, I felt deeply moved, anal full of admiration for the virtue of De la Haye and of his pupil, who, to save his soul, had placed himself under the hard necessity of accepting alms.

One is at the minimum necessity level for achieving a goal, a second covers the optimum solution, and a third might be a money-is-no-object solution which tried to address the so-called requirement factors too.

When the newspapers of our side had discovered and published it, and put it beyond his power to deny it, then he came forward and made a virtue of necessity by acknowledging it.

In that way we shall become acquainted without the necessity of disturbing you, or of your losing at night some hours which may be precious to you.

We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which pronounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends.

The seven American generals had their problems, too, but each had a bevy of subalterns to solve them, while French and English businessmen encountered much difficulty in acquiring even basic necessities.

An acutely satiric man in an English circle, that does not resort to the fist for a reply to him, may almost satiate the excessive fury roused in his mind by an illogical people of a provocative prosperity, mainly tongueless or of leaden tongue above the pressure of their necessities, as he takes them to be.

It may happen that with an unknown ore the first assay will be more or less unsatisfactory: but from it the necessity for adding more or less flour will be learnt, and a second assay, with the necessary modification of the charge, should give a good result.

He represented the peril of perpetual innovations, and the necessity of adhering to some system.

To prevent such a consummation, in conclusion, he urged the necessity of redressing the grievances, and of adopting some remedy to the deplorable distresses under which the Irish people were groaning.

But if the shortness of time should prevent you from complying with this, my earnest desire, and the trial must, of necessity, and to my unspeakable sorrow, be prolonged to another session, then, my lords, I trust you will not consider me, by anything I have said, as precluded from adopting such means of defence as my counsel may judge most advisable for my interest.

Cardwell in insisting upon the government adopting such a course as to a dissolution, as would remove from the house the necessity of taking measures to assert its own high prerogatives.

Seward rose from his sick-bed, pale, emaciated, and sorrowful, to persuade his associates in the Government, of the wisdom and necessity of adopting them.