Ne-cēs'si-ty, n.

n. [Lat. necessitas, from necesse; Fr. nécessité, Pr. necessitat, Sp. necesidad, It. necessità. See NECESSARY.]

1. The quality of being necessary or absolutely requisite; inevitableness; indispensableness. “Urge the necessity and state of times.” Shak.
2. The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want.

The cause of all the distractions in his court or army proceeded from the extreme poverty and necessity his majesty was in. Clarendon. 3. That which is necessary; a necessary; a requisite; — used chiefly 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. Irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion; fate; fatality. Never shall Our heads get out, if once within we be, But stay, compelled by strong necessity. Shak. 5. (Metaph.) The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation. Of necessity, by necessary consequence; by compulsion, or irresistible power. Syn.—See NEED.