necessariness

English

Etymology

From necessary +‎ -ness.

Noun

necessariness (uncountable)

1. The state or characteristic of being necessary.
   • 1898, S. S. Laurie, “The Growth of Mind as a Real and the Influence of the Formal on the Real”, in The School Revew, volume 6, number 4, page 255:

     Time and space are themselves part of the phenomena or object. . . . It is the necessariness of these perceptions which has led to their being elevated to the position of abstract wholes in which all things exist.

   • 1981, Jerald P. Keene, “The Ill-Advised State Court Revival of the 'McNabb-Mallory' Rule”, in The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, volume 72, number 1, page 222:

     The test was so general that defendant flooded the court's docket with appeals seeking judicial examination of the necessariness of prearraignment detentions.

   • 2001 November 19, Jason Cowley, “Books: Still life in mobile homes”, in New Statesman, UK, retrieved 30 September 2008:

     A journey, one would think, ought to have a certain necessariness; there must be a reason for going.

Usage notes

• Necessitude, necessitousness, necessitation, necessariness are all nouns closely related to necessity, but they tend to have narrower ranges of usage than the term necessity. The principal sense of necessitude and necessitousness is impoverishment, but the plural form of the former (necessitudes) denotes a set of circumstances which is inevitable or unavoidable. Necessitation is used to suggest necessity as a philosophical or cosmic principle. Necessariness tends to be used to stress a direct connection to the adjective necessary.