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necessarily

UK/ˈnɛs.ə.sə.ɹɪ.li/US/ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/
adverbB1Very common — you will meet it every day · #2,295 of 15,258neutral

Necessarily means as something that must follow. Not necessarily, it does not necessarily mean that, necessarily true.

Almost every use is negative — not necessarily is the standard phrase, and it denies that one thing follows from another without denying the thing itself. In logic, necessarily true means true in every possible case, which is a much stronger claim.

Definitions of necessarily

  1. 1adverbnecessarilyAs something that must follow.B1

    “Expensive wine isn't necessarily better than cheap wine.”

necessarily is a qualifier.

Where it comes from

  1. Latin

    necessārius — unavoidable, inevitable, required

  2. Old French

    necessaire

  3. Middle English

    necessarye

  4. English

    necessary

  5. English, today

    necessarily

Built from

  • necesse · Latin — unavoidable, inevitable
  • cēdō · Latin — yield; avoid, withdraw

From necessary + -ly. necessary comes from Middle English necessarye, from Old French necessaire, from Latin necessārius (“unavoidable, inevitable, required”), variant of necesse (“unavoidable, inevitable”), probably from ne or non cessus, from the perfect passive participle of cēdō (“yield; avoid, withdraw”); see cede. Older use as a noun in reference to an outhouse or lavatory under the influence of English and Latin necessārium, a medieval term for the place for monks’ “unavoidable” business, usually located behind or attached to monastic dormitories.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

necessarily in the wild

  • Logical truths are generally considered to be necessarily true.

    Logical truth

  • The view that logical statements are necessarily true is sometimes treated as equivalent to saying that logical truths are true in all possible worlds.

    Logical truth

  • In chess, a trap is a move that tempts the opponent to play a bad move, but not necessarily.

    List of chess traps

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the cēdō family

necessaryaccesssuccess

necessarily — used about once every 297 pages · #2,295 · point at the bar for the others