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Necessity vs Vital - What's the difference?

necessity | vital |

As a noun necessity

is the quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.

As an adjective vital is

relating to, or characteristic of life.

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

    *

    vital

    English

    (wikipedia vital)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Relating to, or characteristic of life.
  • vital''' energies; '''vital''' functions; '''vital actions
  • Necessary to the continuation of life; being the seat of life; being that on which life depends.
  • The brain is a vital organ.
  • * Spenser
  • Do the heavens afford him vital food?
  • Invigorating or life-giving.
  • Necessary to continued existence.
  • The transition to farming was vital for the creation of civilisation.
  • Relating to the recording of life events.
  • Birth, marriage and death certificates are vital records.
  • Very important.
  • It is vital that you don't forget to do your homework.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-12-14
  • , author=Simon Jenkins, authorlink=Simon Jenkins , title=We mustn't overreact to North Korea boys' toys , volume=188, issue=2, page=23 , date=2012-12-21 , magazine= citation , passage=David Cameron insists that his latest communications data bill is “vital to counter terrorism”. Yet terror is mayhem. It is no threat to freedom. That threat is from counter-terror, from ministers capitulating to securocrats.}}
  • Containing life; living.
  • * Milton
  • spirits that live throughout, vital in every part
  • * Alexander Pope
  • The dart flew on, and pierced a vital part.
  • Capable of living; in a state to live; viable.
  • * Sir Thomas Browne
  • Pythagoras and Hippocrates affirm the birth of the seventh month to be vital .

    Derived terms

    * vital force * vital organ * vital signs * vital statistics