Definitions for essence
ˈɛs ənsessence

Princeton's WordNet(1.00 / 2 votes)Rate this definition:

1. kernel, substance, core, center, centre, essence, gist, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty(noun)

   the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience

   "the gist of the prosecutor's argument"; "the heart and soul of the Republican Party"; "the nub of the story"

2. essence(noun)

   any substance possessing to a high degree the predominant properties of a plant or drug or other natural product from which it is extracted

3. effect, essence, burden, core, gist(noun)

   the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work

4. perfume, essence(noun)

   a toiletry that emits and diffuses a fragrant odor

Wiktionary(3.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. essence(Noun)

   The inherent nature of a thing or idea.

2. essence(Noun)

   A significant feature of something.

3. essence(Noun)

   The concentrated form of a plant or drug obtained through a distillation process.

4. essence(Noun)

   Fragrance, a perfume.

5. essence(Noun)

   The true nature of anything, not accidental or illusory.

Webster Dictionary(2.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. Essence(noun)

   the constituent elementary notions which constitute a complex notion, and must be enumerated to define it; sometimes called the nominal essence

   Etymology: [F. essence, L. essentia, formed as if fr. a p. pr. of esse to be. See Is, and cf. Entity.]

2. Essence(noun)

   the constituent quality or qualities which belong to any object, or class of objects, or on which they depend for being what they are (distinguished as real essence); the real being, divested of all logical accidents; that quality which constitutes or marks the true nature of anything; distinctive character; hence, virtue or quality of a thing, separated from its grosser parts

   Etymology: [F. essence, L. essentia, formed as if fr. a p. pr. of esse to be. See Is, and cf. Entity.]

3. Essence(noun)

   constituent substance

   Etymology: [F. essence, L. essentia, formed as if fr. a p. pr. of esse to be. See Is, and cf. Entity.]

4. Essence(noun)

   a being; esp., a purely spiritual being

   Etymology: [F. essence, L. essentia, formed as if fr. a p. pr. of esse to be. See Is, and cf. Entity.]

5. Essence(noun)

   the predominant qualities or virtues of a plant or drug, extracted and refined from grosser matter; or, more strictly, the solution in spirits of wine of a volatile or essential oil; as, the essence of mint, and the like

   Etymology: [F. essence, L. essentia, formed as if fr. a p. pr. of esse to be. See Is, and cf. Entity.]

6. Essence(noun)

   perfume; odor; scent; or the volatile matter constituting perfume

   Etymology: [F. essence, L. essentia, formed as if fr. a p. pr. of esse to be. See Is, and cf. Entity.]

7. Essence(verb)

   to perfume; to scent

   Etymology: [F. essence, L. essentia, formed as if fr. a p. pr. of esse to be. See Is, and cf. Entity.]

Freebase(2.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. Essence

   In philosophy, essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the entity or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. The concept originates with Aristotle, who used the Greek expression to ti ên einai, literally 'the what it was to be', or sometimes the shorter phrase to ti esti, literally 'the what it is,' for the same idea. This phrase presented such difficulties for his Latin translators that they coined the word essentia to represent the whole expression. For Aristotle and his scholastic followers the notion of essence is closely linked to that of definition. In the history of western thought, essence has often served as a vehicle for doctrines that tend to individuate different forms of existence as well as different identity conditions for objects and properties; in this eminently logical meaning, the concept has given a strong theoretical and common-sense basis to the whole family of logical theories based on the "possible worlds" analogy set up by Leibniz and developed in the intensional logic from Carnap to Kripke, which was later challenged by "extensionalist" philosophers such as Quine.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary(5.00 / 2 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Essence

   es′ens, n. the inner distinctive nature of anything: the qualities which make any object what it is: a being: the extracted virtues of any drug: the solution in spirits of wine of a volatile or essential oil: a perfume.—adj. Essen′tial, relating to or containing the essence: necessary to the existence of a thing: indispensable or important in the highest degree: highly rectified: pure.—n. something necessary: a leading principle.—n. Essential′ity, the quality of being essential: an essential part.—adv. Essen′tially.—n. Essen′tialness. [Fr.,—L. essentia—essens, -entis, assumed pr.p. of esse, to be.]

Editors Contribution(5.00 / 2 votes)Rate this definition:

1. essence

   The just and fair qualities of the universes truth expressed through our body, brain, heart, mind, soul, spirit, subconscious, conscience and consciousness.

   The essence of our soul is the universes truth.

   Submitted by MaryC on March 16, 2020  

Suggested Resources(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. essence

   Song lyrics by essence -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by essence on the Lyrics.com website.

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'essence' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #4832

2. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'essence' in Nouns Frequency: #1879

Anagrams for essence »

1. senesce

How to pronounce essence?

1. 

   Alex

   US English

   

   Daniel

   British

   

   Karen

   Australian

   

   Veena

   Indian

How to say essence in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of essence in Chaldean Numerology is: 2

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of essence in Pythagorean Numerology is: 7

Examples of essence in a Sentence

1. Andreas Simic:

   We are human beings, not human doings. Every once in a while we need to stop and smell the roses, hear what is really being said, taste the essence of life, touch someone’s heart and see life for what it truly is, a journey with rest areas.

2. Andreas Simic:

   Each one of has a bridge to cross to get to the other side. Some choose to take it while others do not. That is the essence of life, choosing to choose. Andreas Simic

3. H.W. Mann:

   Spiritual awareness. You don’t know what you don’t know. Until you do. And then you will never be the same again. We realize we are not a human being trying to have a spiritual experience. We are a spiritual being temporarily in the human condition. We are a human being. The human part is the mind-body. The being part is our spiritual essence. We are a spiritual being – being human. The being human is the temporary part. The mind-body will eventually expire, but the spirit is immortal.

4. Walter F. Ulmer:

   The essence of a general's job is to assist in developing a clear sense of purpose ... to keep the junk from getting in the way of important things.

5. Musin Almat Zhumabekovich:

   1. Laughter is my essence, my only attitude to everything and everything. 2. Laughter is the scream of the soul. 3. From the depths of one’s self, a powerful energy of understanding and awareness emerges, everything is rapidly going out. Everything inside breaks and shakes from the crazy, frightening, heartbreaking laughter of pure madness. An endless, contagious laugh and a huge wicked, mocking, malicious smile in the soul and on the face. And from this smile and this laugh, everyone who sees her also begins to smile, and then laugh like crazy, and completely go crazy. All this insight from deep disappointment in everything and everything. Introducing into the lyrical, vital, sad sadness in the soul of man. 4. A race of smiles or a race called: Smile. This is my fantastic race of vision that you see in my many drawings. Their smiles as a symbol of awareness are something absolutely brilliant. A huge amount of information and energy passes through you, and it makes you laugh only. 5. You are in the dimension of eternal causeless laughter, here everyone laughs forever. In this immoral place, everything is not real, in this unscrupulous space, everything is not serious. 6. Pretended laughter is heard much more often than sincere. 7. Inside, everything bursts with laughter from awareness and understanding, sincere laughter that leads people into deep shock. 8. Look, as in this funny terror, people die of laughter, from awareness and understanding, from ridiculous horrors. This laughter drives people crazy. 9. Laugh louder like a madman, I want to hear how your madness laughs, how laughter kills pain. 14. You go down, you are immersed in endless repetition in an open smile, in which an open smile. In this abyss of laughter of reality, at the very bottom, you know yourself. 15. Creativity is laughter in the infinitely deep void of nothingness. 16. Entrance into this world in the form of a smile in the shape of a heart, you enter the human world, into the dimension of laughter, the sarcastic-satirical-ironic sphere of comic, funny pessimism. The way out of this dimension is also in the form of a smile in the shape of a heart. 17. Human reality is an artificial chaos of the subconscious, turned upside down, a made-up world woven from a thousand and a thousand ideas. Where their consciousness gradually mutates, turning them thereby into unknown monsters. 18. Only those steps are holy that overwhelm the madness and chaos in the world. 19. Madness is when garbage recycling in the head breaks down. 20. If you want to destroy the madness and chaos in this world, it is enough to just give up your own egoism. 22. The human world is a comedic chaos. 23. Chaos is someone’s baby rattle. 25. Chaos reigns in society because everyone in this world learns to live their own way. 26. Feelings and emotions are seeds of chaos. 27. We are not afraid of chaos in society, we are afraid of ourselves. 28. Truth is an evil, mocking smile that awakens consciousness, awareness, and causes an evil smile on the face. 29. Evil smiles that never leave one's face. Only deeply understanding people. 30. Optimism is a fake smile. 31. It is funny to realize that under the mask of a scalp, an eternal smile is visible. 32. What are your eyes sad about and what is your smile hiding? 33. From the awareness of everything and everything, the smile on the face becomes wider and wider. 35. Creativity is like a butterfly flying, light wings of inspiration will help fly away beyond the limits of human understanding. 36. Pure madness is when you completely stop pretending. 37. Depression is a free fall into the depths of one’s soul. 38. The laughter of rage and the bloody gloom in a smile in consciousness from an evil joke of reality from the fact that you are not worthy to live like everyone else. The ragged strings of the ever-laughing psyche, like the blinking light of madness where there is insight between light and darkness. The interrupted melody of the harmony of the soul. The silence of insight overcomes the mind, the light is visible leading to a new dimension of thinking, because everything is visible through the transparent eyelids of the vigilance of fear, and only unconsciousness temporarily closes our eyes from fatigue in the realm of the subconscious. Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

Images & Illustrations of essence

Popularity rank by frequency of use