necessary

comparative necessarier · comparative more necessary · superlative necessariest · superlative most necessary

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

   It is absolutely necessary that you call and confirm your appointment.

   2 more examples

   Although I wished to think that all was false, it was yet necessary that I, who thus thought, must in some sense exist.

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

   c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vi], lines 1258-60

   Synonyms: basic, essential, indispensable, necessar, necessitous, needed, prerequisite, required · Antonyms: unnecessary

2. Unavoidable, inevitable.

   If it is absolutely necessary to use public computers, you should plan ahead and forward your e-mail to a temporary, disposable account.

   1 more example

   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.

   1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], lines 1020-25

   Synonyms: inevitable, natural · Antonyms: evitable, incidental, impossible

3. obsoleteDetermined, involuntary: acting from compulsion rather than free will.

   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.

   1871, Richard Holt Hutton, Essays, volume I, page 53

plural necessaries · plural necessarys

1. archaiceuphemisticA place to do the "necessary" business of urination and defecation: an outhouse or lavatory.

   It soon became fashionable for even the poorest families to have a necessary not far from their cabin. […] The more affluent settlers painted their necessarys in bright colors and carved their names on the doors.

   2009, Don Corbly, The Last Colonials, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 67

   Synonyms: bathroom, latrine, necessarium, toilet, toilet room, urinal, water closet, WC

2. obsoleteNecessity.

   […] loss of that whole dominion of New England, and consequently of their Majesties' other American Plantations, endangered not only by the want of provisions, but by the many ships, vessels, seamen and other necessarys in New England, ...

   1858, Rhode Island, Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in New England: 1678-1706, page 285

plural Necessarys

1. A surname.