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Certain vs Essential - What's the difference?

certain | essential |

As adjectives the difference between certain and essential

is that certain is certain while essential is necessary.

As a noun essential is

a necessary ingredient.

certain

English

Adjective

(wikipedia certain) (en adjective)
  • Sure, positive, not doubting.
    • I was certain of my decision.
  • (obsolete) Determined; resolved.
  • * Milton
    • However, I with thee have fixed my lot, / Certain to undergo like doom.
  • Not to be doubted or denied; established as a fact.
  • * Bible, Dan. ii. 45
    • The dream is certain , and the interpretation thereof sure.
  • Actually existing; sure to happen; inevitable.
    • Bankruptcy is the certain outcome of your constant gambling and lending.
  • * Dryden
    • Virtue that directs our ways / Through certain dangers to uncertain praise.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all.
  • Unfailing; infallible.
  • * Mead
    • I have often wished that I knew as certain a remedy for any other distemper.
  • Fixed or stated; regular; determinate.
  • * Bible, Ex. xvi. 4
    • The people go out and gather a certain rate every day.
  • Not specifically named; indeterminate; indefinite; one or some; sometimes used independently as a noun, and meaning certain persons.
  • * Bible, Luke v. 12
    • It came to pass when he was in a certain city.
  • * Macaulay
    • About everything he wrote there was a certain natural grace and decorum.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Antonyms

    * (not doubting) uncertain * (sure to happen) impossible, incidental

    Derived terms

    * certainly

    Related terms

    * certainty

    Determiner

    (en determiner)
  • Having been determined but unspecified. The quality of some particular subject or object which is known by the speaker to have been specifically singled out among similar entities of its class.
  • * Bible, Acts xxiii. 12
    • Certain of the Jews banded together.
  • * , title=The Mirror and the Lamp
    • , chapter=3 citation , passage=One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”}}

    Statistics

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    External links

    * *

    Anagrams

    * * 1000 English basic words ----

    essential

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Necessary.
  • Very important; of high importance.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-17
    • , author=George Monbiot, authorlink=George Monbiot , title=Money just makes the rich suffer , volume=188, issue=23, page=19 , magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) citation , passage=In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. The welfare state is dismantled. Essential public services are cut so that the rich may pay less tax. […]}}
  • Being in the basic form; showing its essence.
    • Don’t mind him being grumpy. That’s the essential Fred.
  • Really existing; existent.
  • * Webster (1623)
    • Is it true, that thou art but a name, / And no essential thing?
  • 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.
  • (medicine) Idiopathic.

    • Synonyms

    * indispensable, crucial, substantive * See also

    Antonyms

    * inessential, unessential, accidental, nonessential, unneeded, adscititious, unimportant, accessorial, unnecessary, incidental

    Derived terms

    * essential amino acid * essential fatty acid * essential listening * essential nutrient * essential oil * essentially * essentialness * quintessential

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A necessary ingredient.
  • A fundamental ingredient.

    • Related terms

    * essence ----