necessities Definition

necessity
noun necessities

1. Something necessary or essential.

Thesaurus: need, want, requisite, requirement, vital part, essential, imperative, fundamental, sine qua non.
2. Circumstances that make something necessary, obligatory or unavoidable.

Example: from necessity rather than choice
Thesaurus: exigency, urgency, essentiality, needfulness, indispensability, requisiteness, obligation, compulsion.
3. A pressing need.

Example: no necessity to rush
4. Poverty; want; need.

Thesaurus: destitution, privation, need, hardship, extremity, indigence, penury, poverty.

Idiom: of necessity

Necessarily; unavoidably.

Etymology: 14c: from Latin necessitas.