Kilo Lingo

#775 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

necessity, need; compulsion, constraint

Examples

.

Necessity has no law.

coactus .

Compelled by necessity, he fled.

.

They did not see the necessity of war.

.

He did this out of necessity.

cogit.

No necessity compels you.

Necessitas, necessitatis is third declension feminine, one of the large family of abstract nouns in -tas, -tatis built off adjectives: from necesse comes necessitas the way veritas comes from verus and libertas from liber. They are all feminine, they all take -tatem in the accusative, and they all keep the t through the oblique cases.

The ablative does most of the work. Necessitate coactus, "driven by necessity", is a set phrase, and ex necessitate is the standard "of necessity" of scholastic argument. Watch the register: classical necessitas is often grim, the compulsion of fate or hunger, while medieval writers use it flatly for a practical need. Necessitas legem non habet, "necessity has no law", is a canon-law maxim rather than a classical tag.

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Latin · Free printables

necessitas: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Latin word "necessitas" (necessity, need; compulsion, constraint): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 16.