essential

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Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
essential /ɪˈsɛnʃ(ə)l/
adjective
  • 1 absolutely necessary; extremely important.
  • 2 central to the nature of something; fundamental: the essential weakness of the plaintiff's case.
  • 3 (of an amino acid or fatty acid) required for normal growth but not synthesized in the body and therefore necessary in the diet.
  • 4 Medicine (of a disease) with no known external stimulus or cause; idiopathic.
noun (essentials)
  • 1 things that are absolutely necessary.
  • 2 the fundamental elements of something.
– derivatives
essentiality noun,
essentially adverb,
essentialness noun.
– origin ME (in the sense ‘in the highest degree’): from late L. essentialis, from L. essentia (see essence).
'essential' also found in these Oxford entries:

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