essential — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Necessary.

   Synonyms

   indispensable

   Antonyms

   accidentalaccessorialincidentalunnecessaryunneeded

   Examples

   There’s canker at the root, your seed Denies the blessing of the sun, The light essential to your need. Your hopes are murdered and undone.

   Thus, research-based resources with the potential to assist teachers prepare secondary students for tertiary education are essential.

2. Very important; of high importance.

   Synonyms

   crucial

   Antonyms

   unimportant

   Examples

   I see it as essential that there should be somewhere to park.

   More examples (1)

   In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. The welfare state is dismantled. Essential public services are cut so that the rich may pay less tax. […]

3. Necessary for survival but not synthesized by the organism, thus needing to be ingested.

4. Being in the basic form; showing its essence.

   Antonyms

   adscititious

   Examples

   Don’t mind him being grumpy. That’s the essential Fred.

5. Really existing; existent.

   Examples

   Or is it true, that thou art but a bare name, / And no eſſential thing?

6. Such that each complementary region is irreducible, the boundary of each complementary region is incompressible by disks and monogons in the complementary region, and no leaf is a sphere or a torus bounding a solid torus in the manifold.

7. Idiopathic.

   Examples

   essential blepharospasm

8. Having the nature of essence; not physical.

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   It is usually allowed that there is the natural body, as St. Paul called it, which is dissolved at death, and the etheric or spiritual body which survives and functions upon an etheric plane. Those are the essential things. But we may really have as many coats as an onion and there may be a mental body which may shed itself at any spot where great mental or emotional strain has been experienced.

Noun

1. A necessary ingredient.

   Synonyms

   must-have

2. A fundamental ingredient.

Adjective

1. absolutely necessary; vitally necessary

   Synonyms

   indispensable

   Examples

   essential tools and materials

   funds essential to the completion of the project

   More examples (1)

   an indispensable worker

2. basic and fundamental

   Antonyms

   inessential

   Examples

   the essential feature

3. of the greatest importance

   Synonyms

   all-importantall importantcrucialof the essence

   Examples

   the all-important subject of disarmament

   crucial information

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   in chess cool nerves are of the essence

4. being or relating to or containing the essence of a plant etc

   Examples

   essential oil

5. defining rights and duties as opposed to giving the rules by which rights and duties are established

   Synonyms

   substantive

   Examples

   substantive law

Noun

1. anything indispensable

   Synonyms

   necessityrequirementrequisitenecessary

   Antonyms

   inessential

   Broader terms

   thing

   Examples

   food and shelter are necessities of life

   the essentials of the good life

   More examples (2)

   allow farmers to buy their requirements under favorable conditions

   a place where the requisites of water fuel and fodder can be obtained