Necessity

How to spell necessity

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce necessity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does necessity mean?

1. nounSomething that is essential and cannot be done without, or the condition of being unavoidably required.

Necessity in a sentence

• A reliable car is a necessity for her long commute.

• Strict budgeting became a necessity after the pay cut.

Where does necessity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin necessitas, meaning 'compulsion', 'unavoidable need', or 'inevitability'. That noun was built on the adjective necesse, which literally meant 'unavoidable' or 'that which cannot be otherwise', and many scholars connect it to the idea of there being 'no withdrawing' or 'no stepping back' from something. English took it in during the 1300s through Old French necessite, keeping the sense of something that must be so or something one cannot do without. The famous spelling trap lives in the consonants: a single c followed by a double s (nec-ess-ity), a pattern that catches even fluent writers who reach for a double c by analogy with words like 'accept'. A handy memory hook is that necessity has one collar (c) but two sleeves (s).

How the word is built

• necess- (from Latin necesse: unavoidable, needful)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix)