Must-have

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An item that one must own, or a feature that is essential to a service, etc.

    "The selfie-stick is this year's must-have."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Essential to own.

    "The must-have toy is the apotheosis of the marketing of toys as fashion accessories."

Synonyms

All synonyms
essential

Example

More examples

"Two must-have documents for international students in the United States are a Social Security number and a driver’s license with a photograph or other state-issued photo ID."

Etymology

From must + have.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.