unessential
English
Etymology
From un- + essential.
Adjective
unessential (comparative more unessential, superlative most unessential)
- Not essential.
- Synonyms: inessential, unimportant
- Antonym: essential
- 1676, Joseph Glanvill, Seasonable Reflections and Discourses, London: R.W. [and] H. Mortlock, p. 92,
- [I] have a question more to ask you on occasion of what you have told me; and that is, Whether you are to leave every Minister and Church, as soon as any thing is said that is really erroneous, in the lesser and unessential matters?
- 1716, Joseph Addison, The Free-Holder, No. 39, 4 May, 1716, London: D. Midwinter and J. Tonson, p. 225,
- [He was] moved rather with Pity than Indignation towards the Persons of those, who differed from him in the unessential Parts of Christianity.
- 1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, chapter 18, in The Woodlanders […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, OCLC 17926498:
- “ […] strangeness is not in the nature of a thing, but in its relation to something extrinsic—in this case an unessential observer.”
- 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 9, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, OCLC 884653065; republished New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953, →ISBN:
- But all this part of it seemed remote and unessential.
- Void of essence, or real being.
- Synonym: unsubstantial
- 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554, lines 438-441:
- These [gates] past, if any pass, the void profound
Of unessential Night receives him next
Wide gaping, and with utter loss of being
Threatens him,
- 1686, William Hall, A sermon preach'd before Her Majesty the Queen Dowager, London: William Grantham, p. 7,
- […] even before the Heavens, before those material Orbs, that now rowl over us, were call’d from the dark, and profound Abyss of unessential Nothing:
Derived terms
- unessentiality
See also
- unessentials