1. Word finder
  2. Word definitions
  3. unnecessary

Find the word definition

What is "unnecessary"

Crossword clues for unnecessary

unnecessary
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
unnecessary
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
an unnecessary expense
▪ Paying extra for leather seats seemed like an unnecessary expense.
totally unacceptable/unnecessary/unsuitable etc
▪ Terrorism is totally unacceptable in a civilised world.
unnecessary hardship
▪ The ban is causing unnecessary hardship for fishermen.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
as
▪ The provision has been criticised as unnecessary as most organisers liaised with the police on a voluntary basis.
completely
▪ But she managed to find another cosmetic surgeon who would perform the completely unnecessary op.
▪ The act was senseless and completely unnecessary.
▪ His journey had been completely unnecessary.
▪ Longer-range devices are available on the market today but in my view they are a completely unnecessary expense.
▪ The constituency has been destroyed because of the destruction of its industry, mining; a destruction that was completely unnecessary.
▪ I find divine creation, or several such creations, a completely unnecessary hypothesis.
quite
▪ Also the lining, the types and varieties of which are many, is quite unnecessary!
▪ The greybeards made a quite unnecessary fuss about this and I was forced to employ my stout stick.
▪ The analogy between cultural and genetic evolution has frequently been pointed out, sometimes in the context of quite unnecessary mystical overtones.
▪ It was quite unnecessary that Underwood should clasp her waist like that.
▪ Stuart said he'd given Oliver some money, which I thought was quite unnecessary, not that I said so.
▪ The only comfort is to remember that it is usually foreseeable and quite unnecessary.
▪ The illegal break-in at the Watergate Building was in retrospect quite unnecessary in terms of Nixon's electoral changes in 1972.
▪ Often this is quite unnecessary, since what they are doing is as genuine research as any.
totally
▪ Their suffering is totally unnecessary when they could easily be slaughtered near the farm of production.
▪ It was totally unnecessary, to begin with.
▪ A locum consultant failed to spot the result of her earlier test and arranged for a totally unnecessary exploratory operation.
▪ The funny part of the story is that it was totally unnecessary.
▪ The tendency to categorize black sportsmen and women differently from the rest is faintly racist and, I believe, totally unnecessary.
▪ As is now clear, it was this totally unnecessary act of hubris that more than anything else frightened the voters away.
▪ Biological media is totally unnecessary and a waste of space.
▪ What is happening here is barbaric and totally unnecessary.
■ NOUN
delay
▪ Optimal treatment of attacks can be life saving but suboptimal treatment or unnecessary delay in the provision of care can be fatal.
duplication
▪ To cut unnecessary duplication, Ford decided last year to reduce its horn choices to three.
expense
▪ Parking where you have done seems a rather unnecessary expense, doesn't it?
▪ We feel that this is a very unnecessary expense and would be very time consuming for us to calculate.
▪ I do not complain about that so far as he is concerned because no doubt it would be an additional and unnecessary expense for him.
▪ But objectors say the loo is an unnecessary expense.
▪ Most men consider them an unnecessary expense, if they consider them at all; contraception is a women's issue.
▪ This can save time, worry and unnecessary expense for your family.
▪ Longer-range devices are available on the market today but in my view they are a completely unnecessary expense.
extravagance
▪ A pair of racing shoes could lift your performance or leave you with an appealing but unnecessary extravagance.
▪ It was an unnecessary extravagance, since I would have to be driven a hundred miles back in a car.
▪ In hardback, which he knew she'd think an unnecessary extravagance.
operation
▪ An unnecessary operation was deemed to be one that was performed without pathological evidence of surgically remediable disease.
▪ At this writing there seems to be a movement against circumcision on the ground that all unnecessary operations ought to be avoided.
▪ The proportion of unnecessary operations decreased with increasing time between presentation and operation with no increase in the proportion of complicated appendicitis.
risk
▪ Neither side is likely to take any unnecessary risks in a key game for both teams, so a draw is likely.
suffering
▪ He had carried out a deliberate act causing unnecessary suffering and cruelty.
▪ But in Leeds High Court, a vet denied the mink endured unnecessary suffering.
▪ They are both accused of fourteen offences of causing unnecessary suffering to animals.
▪ Woodruff admitted causing unnecessary suffering when she appeared before Swindon Magistrates.
▪ Doctors were unable to treat them unless and until their parents had been traced and this could cause unnecessary suffering.
▪ He denied two charges of abandoning the pets in circumstances likely to cause them unnecessary suffering on October 23 last year.
work
▪ The whole progress of mankind ought to have consisted in this: the elimination of unnecessary work.
▪ In either case, a large amount of unnecessary work would have to be carried out.
▪ One of the best ways to improve the cost and time performance of any project is to identify and eliminate unnecessary work.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ We can't afford any unnecessary delays.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Another factor led to frustration, annoyance, and an unnecessary expenditure of about $ 800, 000.
▪ For years, I fended off these touching but unnecessary acts of charity.
▪ It is unnecessary for the purposes of this appeal, to express a conclusion upon them.
▪ The boy jerked them in over the gunwale, his father giving an unnecessary push from underneath.
▪ The company is to challenge the conditions imposed by Sefton Council on the grounds that they are unnecessary.
▪ The tendency to categorize black sportsmen and women differently from the rest is faintly racist and, I believe, totally unnecessary.
▪ This does not, of course, imply that nurses should not be concerned with the prevention of unnecessary accidents.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Unnecessary

Unnecessary \Un*nec"es*sa*ry\, a. Not necessary; not required under the circumstances; unless; needless; as, unnecessary labor, care, or rigor. -- Un*nec"es*sa*ri*ly, adv. -- Un*nec"es*sa*ri*ness, n.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
unnecessary

1540s, from un- (1) "not" + necessary (adj.). Related: Unnecessarily.

Wiktionary
unnecessary

a. Not needed or necessary.

WordNet
unnecessary

adj. not necessary [syn: unneeded] [ant: necessary]

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "unnecessary".

If acetic acid is used instead of nitric in the first instance this addition of water is unnecessary.

The topics insisted on, however, were for the most part identical with those which had for a series of years been repeatedly adduced in the commons, so that a repetition of them is unnecessary.

The other British force which faced the Boers who were advancing through Stormberg was commanded by General Gatacre, a man who bore a high reputation for fearlessness and tireless energy, though he had been criticised, notably during the Soudan campaign, for having called upon his men for undue and unnecessary exertion.

But to conclude from any such admissions that a systematic policy of promoting individual and national amelioration should be abandoned in wholly unnecessary.

The Apologists had no doubt as to what it reveals, and therefore any investigation was unnecessary.

United States and Russia still exist, and little bilateral effort has been made to reduce these unnecessary weapons, with mandatory verification of such agreements and the dismantling and disposal of decommissioned weapons.

Had this been done, it would have been unnecessary for the manufacturers to point out that cocoa powder was not being so exported, and that they naturally did not sell the raw cacao bean.

Kurman and Cleer decided it unnecessary to search their prisoner for weapons.

I even spent some time in Paris studying clochards, but I decided that their way of life is both uncomfortable and unnecessary and leads to what most lives lead to, a half-conscious dream that turns in a half-circle.

Nanette said immediately that she would come downstairs with her sister, but Madame Orio answered that it was unnecessary, as they could lock themselves in their room.

But my eloquence was unnecessary, for the general liked to see priests attend to the business of Heaven, but he could not bear them to meddle in temporal affairs.

Charles I clung so tenaciously to the principle of divine right that he considered it unnecessary to be just and loyal to those who denied it.

English reader, we have thought it unnecessary to use the dieresis in such cases.

English reader, we have thought it unnecessary to use the dieresis in similar cases.

He cited the deception of Yakim Douan as the primary reason for the destructive and unnecessary rift between the two churches, Abellican and Chezru.