Necessitate

//nɪˈsɛsɪteɪt// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To make necessary; to behove; to require (something) to be brought about. transitive

    "The early departure of her plane necessitated her waking up at 4 a.m."

  2. 2
    require as useful, just, or proper wordnet
  3. 3
    To force into a certain course of action; compel.

    "The 26th of August was still colder than the day previous. Ice formed in all our water-vessels, and one was necessitated to the brisker kind of exercise in order to keep warm."

  4. 4
    cause to be a concomitant wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
compelaskcall forconstraincravedemand

Example

More examples

"School closures due to inclement weather will necessitate extending the school year by three days."

Etymology

From earlier necessitat, from Medieval Latin necessitātus, perfect past participle of necessitō (“to make necessary”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix, of participial origin)), from Classical Latin necessitās (“necessity, need”) + -ō. Necessitās is derived from necesse (“unavoidable”) (from ne- (“not”) + cessus (“conceded, given up, yielded”). By surface analysis, necessitō + -ate.

Related phrases

bring about

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