Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Not necessary or important; dispensable.
- noun One that is unnecessary.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Not essential; not constituting the essence or essential part; inessential; not of prime importance.
- Void of real being.
- noun Something not constituting essence, or not of absolute necessity: as, forms are among the unessentials of religion.
- noun Same as
unessential note .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Something not constituting essence, or something which is not of absolute necessity.
- adjective Not essential; not of prime importance; not indispensable; unimportant.
- adjective rare Void of essence, or real being.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Not
essential
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective not basic or fundamental
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Geld und Credit, I, 218.) 691 While the words _pecunia_, _danaro_, _dinero_, and _argent_, are all derived from unessential qualities, the German word for money,
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It remains for someone who is an artist, a psychologist, and an expert in human limitations to tell us how far the unessential is a necessary means to the essential -- to tell us whether it is easy or difficult or impossible for the artist to destroy every rung in the ladder by which he has climbed to the stars.
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We can recall the unessential, and we forget the fundamental.
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Report Abuse FEDS tell all "unessential" government workers to leave Egypt.
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If they're "unessential" what the he11 are they doing there in the first place.
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Start cutting all other "unessential" government programs now, not waiting for next year.
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Start cutting all other "unessential" government programs now, not waiting for next year.
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Start cutting all other "unessential" government programs now, not waiting for next year.
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I know many of us are up to our eyeballs in NaNo right now where extra words are a bonus, not a hindrance, but come Dec. 1 when we have to edit that bad boy, Kim Blanks list of unessential words will be a godsend.
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After doing this for so long, I instinctively know the best way to enter and exit a scene, set up a passage of dialogue with beats and tags, avoid cluttering up a passage with unessential words.
Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » Interview with Kathleen Bolton, part 2
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