Necessity \Ne*ces"si*ty\, n.; pl. Necessities. [OE. necessite, F. n['e]cessit['e], L. necessitas, fr. necesse. See Necessary.]

1. The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite; inevitableness; indispensableness.

2. The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want.

Urge the necessity and state of times. --Shak.

The extreme poverty and necessity his majesty was in. --Clarendon.

3. That which is necessary; a necessary; a requisite; something indispensable; -- often in the plural.

These should be hours for necessities, Not for delights. --Shak.

What was once to me Mere matter of the fancy, now has grown The vast necessity of heart and life. --Tennyson.

4. That which makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality.

So spake the fiend, and with necessity, The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds. --Milton.

5. (Metaph.) The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism.

Of necessity, by necessary consequence; by compulsion, or irresistible power; perforce.

Syn: See Need.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)