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essence

noun
/ˈɛsəns/

Etymology

From Middle English essence, from Middle French essence, from Latin essentia (“the being or essence of a thing”), from an artificial formation of esse (“to be”), to translate Ancient Greek οὐσία (ousía, “being”), from ὤν (ṓn), present participle of εἰμί (eimí, “to be, exist”).

  1. derived from οὐσία
  2. derived from essentia
  3. derived from essence
  4. inherited from essence

Definitions

  1. The inherent nature of a thing or idea.

    • CHARITY is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands, ſays an old writer. Gifts and alms are the expreſſions, not the eſſence of this virtue.
    • They [the laws] are at present, both in form and essence, the greatest curse that society labours under ; the scorn of the wicked, the consternation of the good, the refuge of those who violate, and the ruin of those who appeal to them.
    • The essence of Addison’s humour is irony.

  2. The true nature of anything, not accidental or illusory.

  3. Constituent substance.

    • For Spirits when they pleaſe / Can either Sex aſſume, or both ; ſo ſoft / And uncompounded is their Eſſence pure, / Not ti’d or manacl’d with joynt or limb, / Nor founded on the brittle ſtrength of bones, / Like cumbrous fleſh[…]
  4. ›+ 6 more definitions

    1. A being

      A being; especially, a purely spiritual being.

      • He [Gottfried Wolfgang] had been indulging in fanciful speculations on spiritual essences, until, like Swedenborg, he had an ideal world of his own around him.

    2. A significant feature of something.

    3. The concentrated form of a plant or drug obtained through an extraction or distillation…

      The concentrated form of a plant or drug obtained through an extraction or distillation process.

      • essence of Jojoba

    4. An extract or concentrate obtained from a plant or other matter used for flavouring, or…

      An extract or concentrate obtained from a plant or other matter used for flavouring, or as a restorative.

      • vanilla essence
      • She bathed the face of the sleeper with some essence, raised her in her arms, and called upon her name.
      • There was no one to cook the necessary food that the invalids required to pick up their strength; no fowls to be bought, to make into the essence that is so generally given to fever patients wherever I have been since.

    5. Fragrance, a perfume.

      • Our humbler province is to tend the Fair, / Not a leſs pleaſing, tho’ leſs glorious care ; / To ſave the powder from too rude a gale, / Nor let th’ impriſon’d eſſences exhale[…]

    6. A female given name of African-American usage.

The neighborhood

Derived

coffee essence, essenced, essenceless, essence peddler, glabrescence, hyperessence, in essence, k-essence, of the essence, time is of the essence, paradessence, superessence, unessence, vanilla essence

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at essence. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01essence02nature03technology04mechanism05links06link07ideas08idea

A definitional loop anchored at essence. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at essence

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA