essential

English Online Dictionary. What means essential‎? What does essential mean?

English

Alternative forms

• essentiall (obsolete)

Etymology

From Late Latin essentiālis, from Latin essentia (“being, essence”).

Pronunciation

• (UK, Canada) IPA^(key): /ɪˈsɛn.ʃəl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɪˈsɛn.ʃəl/, /əˈsɛn.tʃəl/
• Hyphenation: es‧sen‧tial

Adjective

essential (comparative more essential, superlative most essential)

1. Necessary.

   Synonyms: indispensable; see also Thesaurus:requisite

   Antonyms: accidental, accessorial, incidental, unnecessary, unneeded
2. Very important; of high importance.

   Synonyms: crucial; see also Thesaurus:important

   Antonyms: unimportant; see also Thesaurus:insignificant
3. (biology) Necessary for survival but not synthesized by the organism, thus needing to be ingested.
4. Being in the basic form; showing its essence.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:intrinsic, Thesaurus:bare-bones

   Antonyms: adscititious; see also Thesaurus:extrinsic

5. Really existing; existent.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:existent

   Antonyms: see Thesaurus:inexistent
6. (geometry) 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.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

7. (medicine) Idiopathic.

8. Having the nature of essence; not physical.

Antonyms

• inessential, unessential, non-essential, nonessential

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

essential (plural essentials)

1. A necessary ingredient.

   Synonym: must-have

2. A fundamental ingredient.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Related terms

• essentials
• essence

Translations

Further reading

• essential on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• siletanes