Essence definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (46)

American Heritage Dictionary (10)

noun The intrinsic or indispensable properties that serve to characterize or identify something.
noun The most important ingredient; the crucial element.
noun The inherent, unchanging nature of a thing or class of things.

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Century Dictionary (30)

The inward nature, true substance, or constitution of anything. The Greek οὐσία (see the etymology) denotes a subject in esse, something whose mode of being corresponds to that of a subject, as distinguished from a predicate, in speech. But while this is the original conception, the word essence, even in Latin, usually carries a different sense. The essence is rather the idea of a thing, the law of its being, that which makes it the kind of thing that it is, that which is expressed in its definition. In regard to artificial things, the conception of an essence is usually tolerably clear; thus, the essence of a bottle is that it should be a vessel with a tubular orifice. Those philosophers who speak of the essences of natural things hold that natural kinds are regulated by similar ideas. Nominalists hold that definitions do not belong to things, but to words; and accordingly they speak of the essences of words, meaning what is directly implied in their definitions. Justice in her very essence is all strength and activity. Milton, Eikonoklastes, xxviii. First, essence may be taken for the being of anything, whereby it is what it is. And thus the real internal, but generally in substances unknown, constitution of things, whereon their discoverable qualities depend, may be called their essence. … Secondly, … but, it being evident that things are ranked under names into sorts or species only as they agree to certain abstract ideas, to which we have annexed those names, the essence of each genus or sort comes to be nothing but that abstract idea which the general or sortal(if I may have leave so to call it from sort, as I do general from genus) name stands for. And this we shall find to be that which the word essence imports in its most familiar use. These two sorts of essences, I suppose, may not unfitly be termed, the one the real, the other the nominal, essence. Locke, Human Understanding, III. iii. 15. Whatever makes a thing to be what it is, is properly called its essence. Self-consciousness, therefore, is the essence of the mind, because it is in virtue of self-consciousness that the mind is the mind—that a man is himself. Ferrier. But when in heaven she shall his essence see, This is her soveraigne good and perfect blisse. Sir J. Davies. I shall not fear to know things for what they are. Their essence is not less beautiful than their appearance. Emerson, Essays, 1st ser., p. 180. To hold everything worthy of knowledge but the faith by which he has lived, is to hold the accidents of life better than its essence. Contemporary Rev., LI. 218.
Hence The distinctive characteristic; that which is expressed by the definition of any term: as, the essence of a miser's character is avarice. When Louis XIV. said, “I am the state,” he expressed the essence of the doctrine of unlimited power. D. Webster, Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1825. The essence of savagery seems to consist in the retention of a primordial condition. Darwin, Express. of Emotions, p. 235. He who believes in goodness has the essence of all faith. He is a man “of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows.” J. F. Clarke, Self-Culture, p. 259.
That part of anything which gives it its individual character or quality: as, this summary contains the essence of the book. Mix'd with bestial slime, This essence to incarnate and imbrute. Milton, P. L., ix. 166.

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There were some slight differences but the essence was the same. — UUpdates - All updates
Robot Suit HAL remains creepy and weird however, because its essence translates into a person controlling the — Weird Asia News
While acknowledging that the three great issues of metaphysics - God, freedom and immortality - could not be logically determined, he asserted that their essence is a necessary presupposition. — Conceptual Guerilla - Central Command in the War of Ideas
The highlight of his discourses is meditation, which he calls the essence of Buddhism. — The Buddhist Channel
A mystic believes that his essence is the same as the essence of God. — The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

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conception · aspect · substance · significance · manifestation · symbol · perfume · reality · origin · concept · unity · attribute

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English essencia and French essence, both from Latin essentia, from esse, to be, from the presumed present participle *essēns, *essent- (on the model of differentia, difference, from differēns, different-, present participle of differre, to differ), created to translate Greek ousiā (from ousa, feminine present participle of einai, to be); see es- in Indo-European roots.

Century Dictionary (2)

= Dutch essence = German essenz = Danish Swedish essens, from French essence = Provencal essentia = Spanish esencia = Portuguese essencia = Italian essenzia (obsolete), essenza, from Latin essentia, the being or essence of a thing, an artificial formation from esse (as if from essen(t-)s, present participle), to translate Greek οὐσία, being, from ω῎ν (οντ-), present participle of εἰ-ναι = Latin es-se, be: see am (under be), and ens, entity.
from essence, n., 8.

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