Does not this, indeed, form the very quintessential attribute of good government? New Word List Word List. Save This Word! See synonyms for quintessential on Thesaurus. We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms. Words nearby quintessential quinte , quintefoil , quinternion , Quintero , quintessence , quintessential , quintet , quintic , quintile , Quintilian , quintillion.
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These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. While quintessential means 'representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class' [OED], it defines essential as 'absolutely necessary; extremely important'.
I have noticed frequent instances of the two being used interchangeably. How did this come about? I don't think they are even near to one another and even if someone comes across their cross reference it's should be considered a mistake.
Note: Though quintessential has it roots in medival latin which points towards aether [the classic element also known as fifth element after earth, fire, water, and air ] but to the end that too points towards achieving the purest essence, of one which heavenly bodies are composed. Also through the course of language and literature its meaning has kept on evolving following to current definitions along with their usage examples.
Macmillan : a feature of something that contains all of its main qualities a, person or thing that is a perfect example of something Oxford : representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class Oxford advance learning dictionary : the perfect example of something the most important features of something Collins : in such a way as to be most typically representative of a quality, state, etc; perfectly Cambridge dictionary : being the most typical example or most important part of something Merriam webster : constituting, serving as, or worthy of being a pattern to be imitated.
To further narrow down the ambiguity here is a brief article on etymology of the same. Essence is from Latin essentia 'essence, being'. Just for comparison, being is the present active participle of the English verb be, was, been. Quintessence comes from Mediaeval alchemical Latin, for quinta essentia ' fifth essence', meaning a potion that had been distilled five times.
So it probably means being that's a hundred proof or more; i. But since essence is so immaterial, there's no real difference between the meanings. Quintessence is a learned word, but that may or may not matter. I researched this question in hopes to find an easy answer, but I came away more puzzled than when I started. Here are the synonyms of essential suggested by my computer's on-board thesaurus sure enough, there is quintessential , listed among the candidates , followed by the definitions provided by its dictionary:.
There are two oddities, at least in my mind. First, I can't find anything in the meaning of essential that carries the essence of quintessential ; second, when I looked up the other synonyms for essential in the thesaurus i. As can be seen by the bottom part of my screenshot, though, essential is conspicuously missing from the listed synonyms of quintessential.
This leads me to believe that using quintessential in place of essential would be a mistake, as Raghav said in an answer, and Kate Gregory mentioned in a comment. Yet it's not too often that such a "mistake" would be supported by a thesaurus. I even looked up essential and essentially in the OED, as Tim Lymington suggested, and still couldn't find any clear-cut link.
First Known Use of quintessential Adjective , in the meaning defined above Noun , in the meaning defined above. Learn More About quintessential. Share quintessential Post the Definition of quintessential to Facebook Share the Definition of quintessential on Twitter. Time Traveler for quintessential The first known use of quintessential was in See more words from the same year.
From the Editors at Merriam-Webster. Statistics for quintessential Look-up Popularity. Style: MLA. Get Word of the Day daily email! Test Your Vocabulary. Test your visual vocabulary with our question challenge!
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