unessential

English

Etymology

From un- +‎ essential.

Adjective

unessential (comparative more unessential, superlative most unessential)

  1. 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 […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
      “ […] 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, published 1953, →ISBN, →OCLC:
      But all this part of it seemed remote and unessential.
  2. Void of essence, or real being.
    Synonym: unsubstantial
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, 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, page 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

See also
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