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Desire vs Necessity - What's the difference?

desire | necessity |

As nouns the difference between desire and necessity

is that desire is someone or something wished for while necessity is (quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite) The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.

As a verb desire

is to want; to wish for earnestly.

desire

English

Verb

(desir)
  • To want; to wish for earnestly.
  • * Bible, Exodus xxxiv. 24
  • Neither shall any man desire thy land.
  • * Tennyson
  • Ye desire your child to live.
  • To put a request to (someone); to entreat.
  • * 1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , Acts XIII:
  • And when they founde no cause of deeth in hym, yet desired they Pilate to kyll him.
  • *
  • , title=The Mirror and the Lamp , chapter=2 citation , passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired .}}
  • To want emotionally or sexually.
  • To express a wish for; to entreat; to request.
  • * Bible, 2 Kings iv. 28
  • Then she said, Did I desire a son of my lord?
  • * Shakespeare
  • Desire him to go in; trouble him no more.
  • To require; to demand; to claim.
  • * Spenser
  • A doleful case desires a doleful song.
  • To miss; to regret.
  • * Jeremy Taylor
  • She shall be pleasant while she lives, and desired when she dies.

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • (countable) Someone or something wished for.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
  • , volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].}}
  • (uncountable) Strong attraction, particularly romantic or sexual.
  • (uncountable) Motivation.
  • (uncountable) The feeling of desire.
  • Synonyms

    * (one or thing wished for) wanna, want-to * (motivation) wanna, want-to

    See also

    * velleity

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * * English control verbs

    necessity

    Noun

    (necessities)
  • The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)
  • , volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […].  Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. […]  But the scandals kept coming, […]. A broad section of the political class now recognises the need for change but remains unable to see the necessity of a fundamental overhaul.}}
  • The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want.
  • That which is necessary; a requisite; something indispensable.
  • *
  • Love and compassion are necessities , not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
  • That which makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality.
  • * 1804 , Wordsworth,
  • I stopped, and said with inly muttered voice,
    'It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:
    This neither is its courage nor its choice,
    But its necessity in being old.
  • The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism.
  • (legal) Greater utilitarian good; used in justification of a criminal act .
  • (legal, in the plural) Indispensable requirements (of life).
  • Synonyms

    * (state of being necessary) inevitability, certainty

    Antonyms

    * (state of being necessary) impossibility, contingency * (something indispensable) luxury

    Derived terms

    * make a virtue of necessity

    Anagrams

    *