different between necessitude vs necessary

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n??s?s?t(j)u?d/

Noun

necessitude (plural necessitudes)

1. (rare) The state or characteristic of being in need; neediness.
   • 1870, "Lord Kilgobbin," The Cornhill Magazine, vol. 22, p. 521:

     It had been of all things the most harassing and wearying—a life of dreary necessitude—a perpetual struggle with debt.

   • 2001, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, The Cause, ?ISBN, p. 408:

     Even if she could have faced life without him, she could not go through it all again, the bankruptcy and shame and necessitude.

2. (rare, usually pluralized) A circumstance or event which is necessary or unavoidable, especially because it is a requirement of a social role or natural state of affairs.
   • 1814, Félix de Beaujour, Sketch of the United States of North America trans. William Waldon, London, p. 169:

     The Americans. . . fear not the necessitudes of fortune.

   • 1872, James Parsons, "The Ancient Commonwealth," The American Law Register (1852-1891), vol. 20, no. 8, New Series vol. 11, p. 485:

     He lives with them in the isolated home of the tribe and enters into the mysterious communion with the domestic gods who still take part in the necessitudes of the family.

   • 1995, Michael W. McConnell and Edmund Burke, "Establishment and Toleration in Edmund Burke's 'Constitution of Freedom'," The Supreme Court Review, Vol. 1995, p. 437:

     As Conor Cruise O'Brien has pointed out, this passage has a "poignant ring," in light of the probable fact that Burke's father was one of those who betrayed his "duty" by sacrificing his "opinion of eternal happiness" to the necessitudes of legal practice.

3. (rare, chiefly philosophy) Necessity.
   • 1981, Graham Dawson, "Justified True Belief Is Knowledge," The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 125: p. 328:

     In Popperian terms, it demonstrates the necessitude of public debate.

4. (archaic) A relation or connection between people or things.

   • The relation and necessitude is trifling and loose, and they are all equally contemptible; because the mind entertains no loves or union.

Usage notes

• Necessitude, necessitousness, necessitation, necessariness are all nouns closely related to necessity, but they tend to have narrower ranges of usage than the term necessity. The principal sense of necessitude and necessitousness is impoverishment, but the plural form of the former (necessitudes) denotes a set of circumstances which is inevitable or unavoidable. Necessitation is used to suggest necessity as a philosophical or cosmic principle. Necessariness tends to be used to stress a direct connection to the adjective necessary.

References

English

Etymology

From Middle English necessarye, from Old French necessaire, from Latin necess?rius (“unavoidable, inevitable, required”), variant of necesse (“unavoidable, inevitable”), probably from ne or non cessum, from the perfect passive participle of c?d? (“yield; avoid, withdraw”); see cede.

Older use as a noun in reference to an outhouse or lavatory under the influence of English and Latin necess?rium, a medieval term for the place for monks' "unavoidable" business, usually located behind or attached to monastic dormitories.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?n?s??s??i/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?n?s?s??/

• (nonstandard) IPA^(key): /?n?s??i/

Adjective

necessary (comparative necessarier or more necessary, superlative necessariest or most necessary)

1. Required, essential, whether logically inescapable or needed in order to achieve a desired result or avoid some penalty.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:requisite

   Antonym: unnecessary

   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare & al., The Life of Tymon of Athens, Act III, Scene vi, ll. 1258-60:

     1.Sen. ...The faults Bloody:
     'Tis necessary he should dye:
     Nothing imboldens sinne so much, as Mercy.

2. Unavoidable, inevitable.

   Synonyms: inevitable, natural

   Antonyms: evitable, incidental, impossible

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar, Act II, Scene ii, ll. 1020-25:

     Cæs. Cowards dye many times before their deaths,
     The valiant neuer taste of death but once:
     Of all the Wonders that I yet haue heard,
     It seemes to me most strange that men should feare,
     Seeing that death, a necessary end
     Will come, when it will come.

3. (obsolete) Determined, involuntary: acting from compulsion rather than free will.
   • 1871, Richard Holt Hutton, Essays, Vol. I, p. 53:

     But that a necessary being should give birth to a being with any amount, however limited, of moral freedom, is infinitely less conceivable than that parents of the insect or fish type should give birth to a perfect mammal.

Derived terms

• necessarily
• necessary condition

Related terms

Translations

Noun

necessary (plural necessaries)

1. (Britain, archaic euphemistic, usually with the definite article) A place to do the "necessary" business of urination and defecation: an outhouse or lavatory.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:bathroom

Related terms

• necessary house; necessary place, necessary stool, necessary vault (obsolete)

References

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