different between essential vs needful

English

Alternative forms

• essentiall (obsolete)

Etymology

From Late Latin essenti?lis, from Latin essentia (“being, essence”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??s?n.??l/, [??s?n.t??l]
• Hyphenation: es?sen?tial

Adjective

essential (comparative more essential, superlative most essential)

1. Necessary.

   Synonyms: indispensable; see also Thesaurus:requisite

   Antonyms: accidental, accessorial, incidental, unnecessary, unneeded
2. Very important; of high importance.

   Synonyms: crucial; see also Thesaurus:important

   Antonyms: unimportant; see also Thesaurus:insignificant
3. (biology) necessary for survival but not synthesized by the organism, thus needing to be ingested
4. Being in the basic form; showing its essence.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:intrinsic, Thesaurus:bare-bones

   Antonyms: adscititious; see also Thesaurus:extrinsic

5. Really existing; existent.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:existent

   Antonyms: see Thesaurus:inexistent
6. (geometry) Such that each complementary region is irreducible, the boundary of each complementary region is incompressible by disks and monogons in the complementary region, and no leaf is a sphere or a torus bounding a solid torus in the manifold.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

7. (medicine) Idiopathic.
8. Having the nature of essence; not physical.

Antonyms

• inessential, unessential, non-essential, nonessential

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

essential (plural essentials)

1. A necessary ingredient.
2. A fundamental ingredient.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Related terms

• essence

Translations

Further reading

• essential on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• siletanes

English

Alternative forms

• nedefull, needfull

Etymology

From Middle English needeful, nedeful, from Old English n?odful (“necessary; earnest; zealous”). Equivalent to need +? -ful. Cognate with Dutch noodvol, German notvoll.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ni?df?l/
• Hyphenation: need?ful

Adjective

needful (comparative more needful, superlative most needful)

1. Needed; necessary; mandatory; requisite; indispensible.

   Antonym: needless

   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 5

     So I went to keep house with him at the Why Not? and my aunt sent down my bag of clothes, and would have made over to Elzevir the pittance that my father left for my keep, but he said it was not needful, and he would have none of it.

2. (archaic) Needy; in need.
   • 1860, Union Society of Savannah, Minutes of the Union Society (page 114)

     […] where his active benevolence was ever found in cheerful co-operation for the cause of the humble & needful orphan […]

Derived terms

• needfully
• needfulness

Noun

needful (plural needfuls)

1. (slang) Ready money; wherewithal.
2. (India, chiefly archaic in other dialects) Anything necessary or requisite.

Usage notes

Commonly found in phrases such as "kindly do the needful", which occurs commonly in Indian English but is held as archaic in other dialects. Global interactions between English speakers have to some extent led to these phrases being seen as stereotypical of Indian English and parodied by speakers of other dialects.

Derived terms

• do the needful

Anagrams

• Neufeld