Definitions for essential
əˈsɛn ʃəles·sen·tial

Princeton's WordNet(3.45 / 9 votes)Rate this definition:

1. necessity, essential, requirement, requisite, necessary(adj)

   anything indispensable

   "food and shelter are necessities of life"; "the essentials of the good life"; "allow farmers to buy their requirements under favorable conditions"; "a place where the requisites of water fuel and fodder can be obtained"

2. essential, indispensable(adj)

   absolutely necessary; vitally necessary

   "essential tools and materials"; "funds essential to the completion of the project"; "an indispensable worker"

3. essential(adj)

   basic and fundamental

   "the essential feature"

4. all-important(a), all important(p), crucial, essential, of the essence(p)(adj)

   of the greatest importance

   "the all-important subject of disarmament"; "crucial information"; "in chess cool nerves are of the essence"

5. essential(adj)

   being or relating to or containing the essence of a plant etc

   "essential oil"

6. substantive, essential(adj)

   defining rights and duties as opposed to giving the rules by which rights and duties are established

   "substantive law"

Wiktionary(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. essential(Noun)

   A necessary ingredient.

   Etymology: From essentialis, from essentia.

2. essential(Noun)

   A fundamental ingredient.

   Etymology: From essentialis, from essentia.

3. essential(Adjective)

   Idiopathic.

   Etymology: From essentialis, from essentia.

4. essential(Adjective)

   Necessary.

   Etymology: From essentialis, from essentia.

5. essential(Adjective)

   Very important; of high importance.

   Etymology: From essentialis, from essentia.

6. essential(Adjective)

   Being in the basic form; showing its essence.

   Don't mind him being grumpy. That's the essential Fred.

   Etymology: From essentialis, from essentia.

7. essential(Adjective)

   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.

   Etymology: From essentialis, from essentia.

Webster Dictionary(4.67 / 3 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Essential(adj)

   belonging to the essence, or that which makes an object, or class of objects, what it is

   Etymology: [Cf. F. essentiel. See Essence.]

2. Essential(adj)

   hence, really existing; existent

   Etymology: [Cf. F. essentiel. See Essence.]

3. Essential(adj)

   important in the highest degree; indispensable to the attainment of an object; indispensably necessary

   Etymology: [Cf. F. essentiel. See Essence.]

4. Essential(adj)

   containing the essence or characteristic portion of a substance, as of a plant; highly rectified; pure; hence, unmixed; as, an essential oil

   Etymology: [Cf. F. essentiel. See Essence.]

5. Essential(adj)

   necessary; indispensable; -- said of those tones which constitute a chord, in distinction from ornamental or passing tones

   Etymology: [Cf. F. essentiel. See Essence.]

6. Essential(adj)

   idiopathic; independent of other diseases

   Etymology: [Cf. F. essentiel. See Essence.]

Freebase(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Essential

   Essential is a 1991 collection of hits by The Divinyls.

Editors Contribution(3.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. essential

   A fundamental form.

   The fundamental form of the system was created first and then the others mapped their systems into the whole.

   Submitted by MaryC on January 26, 2020  

2. Essential

   A natural form.

   Wind is an essential form of the weather necessary to dry land, distribute seeds etc.

   Submitted by MaryC on January 26, 2020  

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'essential' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #1147

2. Written Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'essential' in Written Corpus Frequency: #2350

3. Adjectives Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'essential' in Adjectives Frequency: #142

How to pronounce essential?

1. Alex

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

How to say essential in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of essential in Chaldean Numerology is: 3

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of essential in Pythagorean Numerology is: 5

Examples of essential in a Sentence

1. Erin Haney:

   I think Kim and her team would be the first to say she does, of course, have a lot of help, and that's essential, i think when she first announced that she was doing this, there were some people who felt some level of inequity. One of the things that Kim has talked about a lot is that she is consistently, incredibly impressed by people who were able to study law, make it through the bar, be a parent, all of these things because it is just so incredibly hard.

2. Steve Pasierb:

   We're worried about how much of the 10 % tariff will get passed on to consumers across all categories. A lot of things are going to get more expensive, and toys aren't essential goods.

3. Northrop Frye:

   Culture's essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object.

4. Le Drian:

   It is essential that France accentuates its support for MINUSMA (the U.N. mission), to allow it to succeed in its noble mission of maintaining peace.

5. Congressman Raul Grijalva:

   Either we begin this process, stabilize, create some carve out opportunities for essential services and/or wait for the crisis to get worse and then have to respond with humanitarian relief.

Images & Illustrations of essential

Popularity rank by frequency of use