Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To make necessary or unavoidable.
  • transitive verb To require or compel.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make necessary or indispensable; render unavoidable; cause to be a necessary consequence.
  • To force irresistibly; compel; oblige; impel by necessity.
  • To reduce to a state of need; threaten or oppress by necessity or need, or the prospect of need.
  • Synonyms To constrain, drive.
  • Necessitated.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To make necessary or indispensable; to render unavoidable.
  • transitive verb To reduce to the necessity of; to force; to compel.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To require something to be brought about.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb require as useful, just, or proper
  • verb cause to be a concomitant

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Medieval Latin necessitāre, necessitāt-, from Latin necessitās, necessity; see necessity.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Medieval Latin necessitatus, past participle of necessitare ("to make necessary"), from Latin necessitas ("necessity"); see necessity.

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Examples

  • Our ability to navigate the compromises those conflicting rights necessitate is what makes us good at living collectively, or not.

    hughstimson.org » Blog Archive » Michael Shermer, Of All People, On Tolerable Atheism 2007

  • We are said to have converted a proposition per accidens, or by limitation, when the rules for the distribution of terms necessitate a reduction in the original quantity of the proposition.

    Deductive Logic St. George William Joseph Stock

  • If they don't, what will their Ministerial salary be, and what increase will the posts 'necessitate' to the staffing etc. of the existing regional offices?

    Brown: The South East Doesn't Matter 2007

  • It leaves us vulnerable to dubious claims about the next demon du jour whose supposedly threatening actions "necessitate" U.S. military invasion in order to keep the world

    Venezuela Analysis Jules Boykoff - ZNet 2008

  • Regardless of your generation, the economic climate is going to necessitate that we all learn how to communicate and work together.

    Gen Y Management Concept Update - NASA Watch 2009

  • I wonder sometime if such concerns will necessitate the development of a cohesive international space traffic regulation agency.

    Why Some Say the Moon? - NASA Watch 2009

  • So that depending upon the level of sophistication of the Libyan air defense, it will necessitate some type of minimization or neutralization of those defenses.

    Questions Remain Concerning No-Fly Zone Over Libya 2011

  • This man is known to the federal legal system as a military imposter of such magnitude as to warrant federal charges and prosecution in a court of law, and to necessitate special stipulations precluding his making those military claims in any way, shape, or form.

    JOHN SACROSANTE aka JOHN HAYDEN aka STEVEN 2010

  • So that depending upon the level of sophistication of the Libyan air defense, it will necessitate some type of minimization or neutralization of those defenses.

    Questions Remain Concerning No-Fly Zone Over Libya 2011

  • So that depending upon the level of sophistication of the Libyan air defense, it will necessitate some type of minimization or neutralization of those defenses.

    Questions Remain Concerning No-Fly Zone Over Libya 2011

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