- needful
- needful, necessary, requisite, indispensable, essential are comparable when meaning urgently required.Needful carries the weakest suggestion of urgency, but it applies to something that is required to supply a want or to fulfill a need{
forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings— U. S. Constitution
}{tradesmen carrying what was needful to British ports— Repplier
}{a sensitive, flexible, resourceful adaptation to objective facts is especially needful— Muller
}Necessary implies more pressing need or urgent constraint but, except where the compulsion of necessity in the sense of an inherent, logi-cally compelling principle{a necessary consequence
}{a necessary conclusion
}{patience ... is a necessary mark of the liberal mind— Dewey
}is suggested, the word need not connote that the thing so qualified cannot be done without but more often indicates it to be infinitely desirable rather than absolutely required; thus, tires are necessary to proper management of an automobile, but in a sufficient emergency one might drive without them{his personal return was most required and necessary—Shak.
}{it was nineteen-thirty-five and honeymoons in Europe were not considered necessary by anyone— Flood
}{made himself so necessary to the company that by 1849 he was general superintendent of the road— HarloW
}{always finding a more necessary article for which a less necessary had to be discarded— Cather
}{of all the bitter and heavy things in this sorry old world, the not being necessary is the bitterest and heaviest— Deland
}Requisite differs from necessary chiefly in being applied to something that is specifically required by the nature of a thing, the end that is in view, or the purpose to be fulfilled; usually the adjective suggests an imposed requirement rather than an inner need and so suggests constraint from without or, often, from official sources{complete the subjects requisite for college entrance
}{the vigor requisite to success— Grandgent
}{the requisite quorum of forty members was not present— Schuyler
}Indispensable not only carries a stronger implication of urgency than the preceding terms, but it also distinctly implies that the thing so qualified cannot be done without, especially if the implied or expressed end is to be attained{there is no such thing as an indispensable person, though many persons have made themselves virtually indispensable
}{the jury is the indispensable element in the popular vindication of the criminal law— Frankfurter
}{rigid truthfulness in adults towards children is . . . absolutely indispensable if children are not to learn lying— Russell
}Essential (see also ESSENTIAL 2 , INHERENT) is often used in place of indispensable as implying no less urgency but as being less extravagant in its suggestion; it usually also implies inherent necessity from the point of view of what a thing is or must be by its very nature or end{knowledge of one's subject is essential to successful teaching
}{essential raw materials
}{you are essential to her perfect happiness— Dickens
}{the builders must have begun with the central piers and the choir, because the choir was the only essential part of the church— Henry Adams
}{the construction of the pier was desirable for the more convenient repair of warships, but it was not essential— Justice Holmes
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
