necessity

n.; pl. Necessities [ OE. necessite, F. nécessité, L. necessitas, fr. necesse. See Necessary. ] 1. The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite; inevitableness; indispensableness. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want. [ 1913 Webster ]

Urge the necessity and state of times. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

The extreme poverty and necessity his majesty was in. Clarendon. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. That which is necessary; a necessary; a requisite; something indispensable; -- often in the plural. [ 1913 Webster ]

These should be hours for necessities,
Not for delights. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

What was once to me
Mere matter of the fancy, now has grown
The vast necessity of heart and life. Tennyson. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. That which makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality. [ 1913 Webster ]

So spake the fiend, and with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds. Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. (Metaph.) The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism. [ 1913 Webster ]

Of necessity, by necessary consequence; by compulsion, or irresistible power; perforce. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- See Need. [ 1913 Webster ]