Dictionary

necessitude en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /nəˈsɛsɪt(j)uːd/

Etymology

From Latin necessitūdō, from necesse + -tūdō, from ne- + cessus.

Meanings

1. (rare) The state or characteristic of being in need; neediness.
   • Even if she could have faced life without him, she could not go through it all again, the bankruptcy and shame and necessitude. 2001, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, The Cause, →ISBN, page 408:
   • It had been of all things the most harassing and wearying—a life of dreary necessitude—a perpetual struggle with debt. 1870, “Lord Kilgobbin,”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume 22, page 521:
2. (qualifier:usually pluralized, rare) A circumstance or event which is necessary or unavoidable, especially because it is a requirement of a social role or natural state of affairs.
   • He lives with them in the isolated home of the tribe and enters into the mysterious communion with the domestic gods who still take part in the necessitudes of the family. 1872, James Parsons, "The Ancient Commonwealth," The American Law Register (1852-1891), vol. 20, no. 8, New Series vol. 11, p. 485
   • The Americans. . . fear not the necessitudes of fortune. 1814, Félix de Beaujour, translated by William Waldon, Sketch of the United States of North America, London, page 169:
   • As Conor Cruise O'Brien has pointed out, this passage has a "poignant ring," in light of the probable fact that Burke's father was one of those who betrayed his "duty" by sacrificing his "opinion of eternal happiness" to the necessitudes of legal practice. 1995, Michael W. McConnell, Edmund Burke, “Establishment and Toleration in Edmund Burke's 'Constitution of Freedom'”, in The Supreme Court Review, volume 1995, page 437:
3. (rare) Necessity.
   • In Popperian terms, it demonstrates the necessitude of public debate. 1981, Graham Dawson, “Justified True Belief Is Knowledge”, in The Philosophical Quarterly, volume 31, number 125, page 328:
4. (archaic) A relation or connection between people or things.
   • The relation and necessitude is trifling and loose, and they are all equally contemptible; because the mind entertains no loves or union. 1678, Antiquitates Christianæ: Or, the History of the Life and Death of the Holy Jesus: […], London: […] E. Flesher, and R. Norton, for R[ichard] Royston, […], →OCLC:

Forms

Deriveds

necessitudinous