NECESSITY

n. 1 requirement, essential, necessary, requisite, need, prerequisite, basic, fundamental, sine qua non, desideratum, constraint I was marooned for a year with only the bare necessities of life We regard honesty as a necessity in a bank manager. 2 indispensability, unavoidability, needfulness, inexorability The necessity for exercise is often met by private health clubs 3 poverty, want, indigence, need, destitution, penury, straits, difficulty, difficulties, pauperism, neediness The extreme necessity of the unemployed demands that the government act quickly 4 urgency, emergency, crisis, misfortune, exigency, pinch, extreme, matter of life and death She has made a virtue of necessity Electric power is no longer a matter of choice but of necessity.