different between external vs essential

English

Etymology

From Middle French externe + -al, from Latin externus, from exter, exterus (“on the outside, outward”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?ks?t?n?l/, /?ks?t?n?l/, /?ks?t?n?l/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?ks?t??n?l/, /?ks?t??n?l/, /?ks?t??n?l/
• Rhymes: -??(?)n?l
• Hyphenation: ex?ter?nal

Adjective

external (comparative more external, superlative most external)

1. Outside of something; on the exterior.
2. Not intrinsic nor essential; accidental; accompanying; superficial.
   • 1850, Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord

     The external circumstances are greatly different.

3. Foreign; relating to or connected with foreign nations.

4. (anatomy) Away from the mesial plane of the body; lateral.
5. Provided by something or someone outside of the entity (object, group, company etc.) considered.

Synonyms

• (not intrinsic nor essential): See also Thesaurus:extrinsic

Antonyms

• internal

Related terms

Translations

Noun

external (plural externals)

1. (chiefly in the plural) The exterior; outward features or appearances.
2. (programming) In the C programming language, a variable that is defined in the source code but whose value comes from some external source.

Further reading

• external in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• external in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• external at OneLook Dictionary Search

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