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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



101 words match “NECESSITY”

NECESSITY n. 5 definitions
The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want. Urge the necessity and state of times. Shak. The extreme poverty and necessity his majesty was in. Clarendon.
NONNECESSITY n.
Absence of necessity; the quality or state of being unnecessary.
UNNECESSITY n.
The state of being unnecessary; something unnecessary. [Obs.]
ABRIDGE v.
is visit." Smollett. She retired herself to Sebaste, and abridged her train from state to necessity. Fuller.
ACT v.
cute; to do. [Archaic] That we act our temporal affairs with a desire no greater than our necessity. Jer. Taylor. Industry doth beget by producing good habits, and facility of acting things expedient for us to do. Barrow. Uplifted hands that at convenient times Could act extortion and the worst of crimes. Cowper.…
ASK v.
re, demand, claim, or expect, whether by way of remuneration or return, or as a matter of necessity; as, what price do you ask Ask me never so much dowry. Gen. xxxiv. 12. To whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. Luke xii. 48. An exigence of state asks a much longer time to conduct a design to mat…
BEHOOVE v.
To be necessary for; to be fit for; to be meet for, with respect to necessity, duty, or convenience; -- mostly used impersonally. And thus it behooved Christ to suffer. Luke xxiv. 46. [Also written behove.]
COMFORT v.
or help; to aid. [Obs.] I . . . can not help the noble chevalier: God comfort him in this necessity! Shak.
CONCURRENCE n.
ibution of power or influence; coöperation. We collect the greatness of the work, and the necessity of the divine concurrence to it. Rogers. An instinct that works us to its own purposes without our concurrence. Burke.
CONSENT v.
To indicate or express a willingness; to yield to guidance, persuasion, or necessity; to give assent or approval; to comply. My poverty, but not my will, consents. Shak. And whispering "I will ne'er consent," -- consented. Byron.
CONSEQUENTIAL a.
r logical inference; consequenment. All that is revealed in Scripture has a consequential necessity of being believed . . . because it is of divine authority. Locke. These kind of arguments . . . are highly consequential and concludent to my purpose. Sir M. Hale.
CONSTRAINT n.
ing constrained; that which compels to, or restrains from, action; compulsion; restraint; necessity. Long imprisonment and hard constraint. Spenser. Not by constraint, but bDryden.
CONVENIENCE; CONVENIENCY n.
reedom from discomfort, difficulty, or trouble; commodiousness; ease; accommodation. Thus necessity invented stools, Convenience next suggested elbow chairs. Cowper. We are rather intent upon the end of God's glory than our own conveniency. Jer. Taylor.
DESTINY n.
The fixed order of things; invincible necessity; fate; a resistless power or agency conceived of as determining the future, whether in general or of an individual. But who can turn the stream of destiny Spenser. Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny. Longfellow. The Dest…
DETENTION n.
The state of being detained (stopped or hindered); delay from necessity.
DISPENSE v.
ulay. He appeared to think himself born to be supported by others, and dispensed from all necessity of providing for himself. Johnson.
DISTRESS n.
A state of danger or necessity; as, a ship in distress, from leaking, loss of spars, want of provisions or water, etc.
DISTRIBUTE v.
To make distribution. Distributing to the necessity of saints. Rom. xii. 13.
DRIVE v.
force; to constrain; to urge, press, or bring to a point or state; as, to drive person by necessity, by persuasion, by force of circumstances, by argument, and the like. " Enough to drive one mad." Tennyson. He, driven to dismount, threatened, if I did not do the like, to do as much for my horse as fortune had done for…
DURESS n.
The state of compulsion or necessity in which a person is influenced, whether by the unlawful restrain of his liberty or by actual or threatened physical violence, to incur a civil liability or to commit an offense.
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