| Main Entry: | essential |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | important, vital |
Synonyms: |
capital, cardinal, chief, constitutive, crucial, foremost, fundamental, imperative, indispensable, leading, main, necessary, necessitous, needed, needful, prerequisite, principal, required, requisite, right-hand, wanted |
| Notes: | the words crucial, essential, and vital cannot be qualified (cannot be more or less...) |
Antonyms: |
accessory, auxiliary, inessential, minor, nonessential, secondary, subsidiary, unimportant |
| Main Entry: | essential |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | basic, fundamental |
Synonyms: |
absolute, basal, cardinal, cold, complete, congenital, connate, constitutional, deep-seated, elemental, elementary, ideal, inborn, inbred, inherent, innate, intrinsic, key, main, material, meat and potatoes, name of the game, nitty-gritty, nub, perfect, primary, prime, primitive, principal, quintessential, substratal, underlying |
Antonyms: |
atypical, minor, secondary |
| Main Entry: | essential |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | necessity, basic |
Synonyms: |
ABCs, bottom line, brass tacks, condition, element, essence, fire and ice, fundamental, groceries, guts*, heart, meat and potatoes, must, name of the game, nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts, part and parcel, precondition, prerequisite, principle, quintessence, requirement, requisite, rudiment, sine qua non, stuff, substance, vital part, where one's at |
Antonyms: |
accessory, auxiliary, nonessential, subsidiary, throwaway, trivia |
| Main Entry: | acute |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | very important |
Synonyms: |
afflictive, critical, crucial, dangerous, decisive, desperate, dire, essential, grave, serious, severe, sudden, urgent, vital |
| Notes: | acute is used for a sudden onset and short duration; chronic is for conditions that are slow to develop and of long duration acute is an angle of less than 90 degrees; obtuse is one of more than 90 degrees chronic is contrasted with acute as chronic pain persists over a longer period of time than acute pain and is resistant to most medical treatments |
Antonyms: |
not serious, unimportant |
| Main Entry: | bare |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | simple, unadorned |
Synonyms: |
austere, bald, basic, blunt, chaste, cold, essential, hard, literal, meager, mere, modest, scant, severe, sheer, simple, spare, stark, unembellished, unornamented |
Antonyms: |
adorned, decorated |
| Main Entry: | base |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | fundamental part |
Synonyms: |
authority, backbone, basis, chief constituent, core, essence, essential, evidence, foundation, fundamental, groundwork, heart, important part, infrastructure, key, origin, primary element, principal, principle, root, source, underpinning |
| Main Entry: | basic |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | elementary, fundamental |
Synonyms: |
basal, capital, central, chief, elemental, essential, indispensable, inherent, intrinsic, key, main, necessary, primary, primitive, principal, radical, substratal, underlying, vital |
Antonyms: |
additional, extra, inessential, nonessential, outside, peripheral, secondary |
| Main Entry: | basis |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | foundation for belief, action |
Synonyms: |
antecedent, assumption, authority, axiom, backbone, background, backing, base, bedrock, cause, center, chief ingredient, core, crux, data, dictum, essence, essential, evidence, explanation, footing, fundamental, hard fact, heart, infrastructure, justification, keynote, keystone, law, nexus, nucleus, postulate, premise, presumption, presupposition, principal element, principle, proof, reason, root, rudiment, sanction, security, source, substratum, support, theorem, theory, underpinning, warrant |
| Main Entry: | binding |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | necessary |
Synonyms: |
bounden, compulsory, conclusive, counted upon, essential, imperative, incumbent on, indissoluble, irrevocable, mandatory, obligatory, required, requisite, unalterable |
| Main Entry: | born |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | innate |
Synonyms: |
built-in, congenital, constitutional, deep-seated, essential, inborn, inbred, ingenerate, inherent, intrinsic, natural |