English Synonyms and Antonyms

essential to an arctic explorer; warm clothing is indispensable. That which is requisite (or required) is so in
the judgment of the person requiring it, but may not be so absolutely; thus, the requisite is more a matter of
personal feeling than the indispensable. Inevitable (L. in, not, and evito, shun) is primarily the exact
equivalent of the Saxon unavoidable; both words are applied to things which some at least would escape or
prevent, while that which is necessary may meet with no objection; food is necessary, death is inevitable; a
necessary conclusion satisfies a thinker; an inevitable conclusion silences opposition. An infallible proof is
one that necessarily leads the mind to a sound conclusion. Needed and needful are more concrete than
necessary, and respect an end to be attained; we speak of a necessary inference; necessary food is what one
can not live without, while needful food is that without which he can not enjoy comfort, health, and strength.
Antonyms:
casual, needless, optional, useless, contingent, non-essential, unnecessary, worthless.
Prepositions:
Necessary to a sequence or a total; for or to a result or a person; unity is necessary to (to constitute)
completeness; decision is necessary for command, or for a commander.
* * * * *
NECESSITY.
Synonyms and Antonyms, by James Champlin Fernald
203

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Synonyms:
compulsion, fatality, requisite, destiny, fate, sine qua non, emergency, indispensability, unavoidableness,
essential, indispensableness, urgency, exigency, need, want. extremity, requirement,
Necessity is the quality of being necessary, or the quality of that which can not but be, become, or be true, or
be accepted as true. Need and want always imply a lack; necessity may be used in this sense, but in the higher
philosophical sense necessity simply denotes the exclusion of any alternative either in thought or fact;
righteousness is a necessity (not a need) of the divine nature. Need suggests the possibility of supplying the
deficiency which want expresses; to speak of a person's want of decision merely points out a weakness in his
character; to say that he has need of decision implies that he can exercise or attain it. As applied to a
deficiency, necessity is more imperative than need; a weary person is in need of rest; when rest becomes a
necessity he has no choice but to stop work. An essential is something, as a quality, or element, that belongs
to the essence of something else so as to be inseparable from it in its normal condition, or in any complete
idea or statement of it. Compare NECESSARY; PREDESTINATION.
Antonyms:
choice, doubt, dubiousness, freedom, possibility, contingency, doubtfulness, fortuity, option, uncertainty.
Prepositions:
The necessity of surrender; a necessity for action; this is a necessity to me.
* * * * *
NEGLECT.
Synonyms:
carelessness, heedlessness, negligence, scorn, default, inadvertence, omission, slackness, disregard,
inattention, oversight, slight, disrespect, indifference, remissness, thoughtlessness. failure, neglectfulness,
Neglect (L. nec, not, and lego, gather) is the failing to take such care, show such attention, pay such courtesy,
etc., as may be rightfully or reasonably expected. Negligence, which is the same in origin, may be used in
almost the same sense, but with a slighter force, as when Whittier speaks of "the negligence which friendship
loves;" but negligence is often used to denote the quality or trait of character of which the act is a
manifestation, or to denote the habit of neglecting that which ought to be done. Neglect is transitive,