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Viral vs Essential - What's the difference?

viral | essential |

As adjectives the difference between viral and essential

is that viral is (virology) of or relating to a biological virus while essential is necessary.

As nouns the difference between viral and essential

is that viral is (marketing) a video, image or text spread by "word of mouth" on the internet or by e-mail for humorous, political or marketing purposes while essential is a necessary ingredient.

viral

English

Adjective

(-)
  • (virology) Of or relating to a biological virus.
    • viral DNA
  • (virology) Caused by a virus.
    • viral infection
  • (computing) Of the nature of an informatic virus; able to spread copies of itself to other computers.
  • (advertising, and, marketing) Spread by word of mouth, with minimal intervention in order to create buzz and interest.

    • Derived terms

    * go viral * viral marketing

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (marketing) A video, image or text spread by "word of mouth" on the internet or by e-mail for humorous, political or marketing purposes.
  • * 2002, Nik Lever, Flash Mx Games: ActionScript for Artists , Focal Press, page 411,
    • Using the Flash ActiveX control in this way allows you as a developer to create desktop characters, email virals and screensavers.
  • * 2003, Dave Chaffey, Total E-Mail Marketing , Elsevier, page 2,
    • [M]ost virals are not seen as profiling and data collection exercises, since that would kill the impulse of forwarding to a friend.
  • * 2005, Russell Evans, Practical DV Filmmaking , Focal Press, page 289,
    • Music company virals are becoming commonplace as costs of promos force labels to reconsider how to target more directly to consumers.

    Anagrams

    * * ----

    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 ----