essential Meaning, Definition & Usage

noun anything indispensable
necessary; requirement; requisite; necessity.
- food and shelter are necessities of life
- the essentials of the good life
- allow farmers to buy their requirements under favorable conditions
- a place where the requisites of water fuel and fodder can be obtained
adjective satellite absolutely necessary; vitally necessary
indispensable.
- essential tools and materials
- funds essential to the completion of the project
- an indispensable worker
adjective basic and fundamental
- the essential feature
adjective satellite of the greatest importance
all important; crucial; all-important; of the essence.
- the all-important subject of disarmament
- crucial information
- in chess cool nerves are of the essence
adjective being or relating to or containing the essence of a plant etc
- essential oil
adjective defining rights and duties as opposed to giving the rules by which rights and duties are established
substantive.
- substantive law

Cf. F. essentiel. See Essence.

Belonging to the essence, or that which makes an object, or class of objects, what it is.
Majestic as the voice sometimes became, there was forever in it an essential character of plaintiveness. Hawthorne.
Hence, really existing; existent.
Is it true, that thou art but a a name, And no essential thing? Webster (1623).
Important in the highest degree; indispensable to the attainment of an object; indispensably necessary.
Judgment's more essential to a general Than courage. Denham.

How to live? -- that is the essential question for us. H. Spencer.
Containing the essence or characteristic portion of a substance, as of a plant; highly rectified; pure; hence, unmixed; as, an essential oil. "Mine own essential horror." Ford.
(Mus.) Necessary; indispensable; -- said of those tones which constitute a chord, in distinction from ornamental or passing tones.
(Med.) Idiopathic; independent of other diseases.