Necessities

How to spell necessities

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce necessities

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does necessities mean?

1. nounThe basic things that are essential and cannot be done without.

Necessities in a sentence

• After losing his job, he could barely afford the bare necessities each month.

• The charity hands out food, blankets and other necessities to families in need.

Where does necessities come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the plural of necessity, which English took from the Old French necessite in the 1300s, itself drawn straight from the Latin necessitas, meaning 'unavoidableness' or 'compulsion'. That noun was built on the adjective necesse, 'unavoidable' or 'inevitable', which most scholars trace to ne, meaning 'not', joined to a root tied to cedere, 'to yield' or 'to give way'; the literal sense was therefore something that cannot be given way to or got around. From the abstract idea of compulsion the word broadened to mean the things one cannot do without, and in the plural it came to name life's basic essentials such as food, shelter and clothing. The doubled internal s and the single c are the spelling trap here: the c is soft and sounds like the first s, so writers must remember one c followed by a double s, then the ordinary -ity ending pluralised to -ities. A handy memory hook is that one collar (single c) needs two socks (double s).

How the word is built

• ne- (not)
• cess (from cedere: to yield, give way)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix)
• -es (plural)