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Necessity vs Choice - What's the difference?

necessity | choice |

As nouns the difference between necessity and choice

is that necessity is (quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite) The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite while choice is an option; a decision; an opportunity to choose or select something.

As an adjective choice is

especially good or preferred.

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

    *

    choice

    English

    (wikipedia choice)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An option; a decision; an opportunity to choose or select something.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Steven Sloman , title=The Battle Between Intuition and Deliberation , volume=100, issue=1, page=74 , magazine= citation , passage=Libertarian paternalism is the view that, because the way options are presented to citizens affects what they choose, society should present options in a way that “nudges” our intuitive selves to make choices that are more consistent with what our more deliberative selves would have chosen if they were in control.}}
    Do I have a choice of what color to paint it?
  • One selection or preference; that which is chosen or decided; the outcome of a decision.
  • The ice cream sundae is a popular choice for dessert.
  • Anything that can be chosen.
  • The best or most preferable part.
  • * Milton
  • The flower and choice / Of many provinces from bound to bound.
  • Care and judgement in selecting; discrimination.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • I imagine they [the apothegms of Caesar] were collected with judgment and choice .
  • (obsolete) A sufficient number to choose among.
  • (Shakespeare)

    Synonyms

    * (anything that can be chosen) assortment, range, selection * the cream * See also

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • Especially good or preferred.
  • It's a choice location, but you will pay more to live there.
  • (slang, New Zealand) Cool; excellent.
  • Choice ! I'm going to the movies.

    Synonyms

    * (especially good or preferred) prime, prize, quality, select