essence

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The intrinsic or indispensable properties that serve to characterize or identify something.
2. n. The most important ingredient; the crucial element.
3. n. The inherent, unchanging nature of a thing or class of things.
4. n. An extract that has the fundamental properties of a substance in concentrated form.
5. n. Such an extract in a solution of alcohol.
6. n. A perfume or scent.
7. n. One that has or shows an abundance of a quality as if highly concentrated: a neighbor who is the essence of hospitality.
8. n. Something that exists, especially a spiritual or incorporeal entity.
9. idiom. in essence By nature; essentially: He is in essence a reclusive sort.
10. idiom. of the essence Of the greatest importance; crucial: Time is of the essence.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. 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.
2. n. Hence The distinctive characteristic; that which is expressed by the definition of any term: as, the essence of a miser's character is avarice.
3. n. That part of anything which gives it its individual character or quality: as, this summary contains the essence of the book.
4. n. Existence; being.
5. n. An elementary ingredient or constituent; anything uncompounded: as, the fifth essence (that is, the fifth element in the philosophy of Aristotle, or the upper air, the other four being, in their order, earth, water, air, and fire). See quintessence.
6. n. Anything of ethereal, pure, or heavenly substance; anything immaterial.
7. n. Any kind of matter which, being an ingredient or a constituent of some better-known substance, gives it its peculiar character; an extract; especially, an oil distilled at a comparatively low temperature from a plant in which it already exists: as, essence of peppermint. In pharmacy the term is applied also to solutions of such oils in alcohol, to strong alcoholic tinctures, etc.
8. n. Perfume; odor; scent; also, the volatile matter constituting perfume.
9. n. Importance; moment; essentiality.
10. To perfume; scent.
11. n. The French designation for oil of cajeput.

Wiktionary

1. n. The inherent nature of a thing or idea.
2. n. A significant feature of something.
3. n. The concentrated form of plant or drug obtained through a distillation process.
4. n. Fragrance, a perfume.
5. n. philosophy The true nature of anything, not accidental or illusory.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The constituent elementary notions which constitute a complex notion, and must be enumerated to define it; sometimes called the nominal essence.
2. n. The constituent quality or qualities which belong to any object, or class of objects, or on which they depend for being what they are (distinguished as real essence); the real being, divested of all logical accidents; that quality which constitutes or marks the true nature of anything; distinctive character; hence, virtue or quality of a thing, separated from its grosser parts.
3. n. Constituent substance.
4. n. A being; esp., a purely spiritual being.
5. n. The predominant qualities or virtues of a plant or drug, extracted and refined from grosser matter; or, more strictly, the solution in spirits of wine of a volatile or essential oil.
6. n. Perfume; odor; scent; or the volatile matter constituting perfume.
7. v. To perfume; to scent.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work
2. n. any substance possessing to a high degree the predominant properties of a plant or drug or other natural product from which it is extracted
3. n. a toiletry that emits and diffuses a fragrant odor
4. n. the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience