essence

• WordNet 3.6
  • n essence a toiletry that emits and diffuses a fragrant odor
  • n essence the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience "the gist of the prosecutor's argument","the heart and soul of the Republican Party","the nub of the story"
  • n essence the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work
  • n essence any substance possessing to a high degree the predominant properties of a plant or drug or other natural product from which it is extracted
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• Interesting fact: The aroma and flavor derived from coffee is a result of the little beads of the oily substance called coffee essence, coffeol, or coffee oil. This is not an actual oil since it dissolves in water.
• • Essence A being; esp., a purely spiritual being. "As far as gods and heavenly essences Can perish.""He had been indulging in fanciful speculations on spiritual essences , until . . . he had and ideal world of his own around him."
  • Essence Constituent substance. "And uncompounded is their essence pure."
  • Essence Perfume; odor; scent; or the volatile matter constituting perfume. "Nor let the essences exhale."
  • Essence The constituent elementary notions which constitute a complex notion, and must be enumerated to define it; sometimes called the nominal essence.
  • Essence The constituent quality or qualities which belong to any object, or class of objects, or on which they depend for being what they are (distinguished as real essence); the real being, divested of all logical accidents; that quality which constitutes or marks the true nature of anything; distinctive character; hence, virtue or quality of a thing, separated from its grosser parts. "The laws are at present, both in form and essence , the greatest curse that society labors under.""Gifts and alms are the expressions, not the essence of this virtue [charity].""The essence of Addison's humor is irony."
  • Essence The predominant qualities or virtues of a plant or drug, extracted and refined from grosser matter; or, more strictly, the solution in spirits of wine of a volatile or essential oil; as, the essence of mint, and the like. "The . . . word essence . . . scarcely underwent a more complete transformation when from being the abstract of the verb “to be,” it came to denote something sufficiently concrete to be inclosed in a glass bottle."
  • v. t Essence To perfume; to scent. "Essenced fops."
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• Interesting fact: The fragrance of flowers is due to the essences of oil which they produce.
• • n essence The inward nature, true substance, or constitution of anything. The Greek οὐσία (see the etymology) denotes a subject in esse, something whose mode of being corresponds to that of a subject, as distinguished from a predicate, in speech. But while this is the original conception, the word essence, even in Latin, usually carries a different sense. The essence is rather the idea of a thing, the law of its being, that which makes it the kind of thing that it is, that which is expressed in its definition. In regard to artificial things, the conception of an essence is usually tolerably clear; thus, the essence of a bottle is that it should be a vessel with a tubular orifice. Those philosophers who speak of the essences of natural things hold that natural kinds are regulated by similar ideas. Nominalists hold that definitions do not belong to things, but to words; and accordingly they speak of the essences of words, meaning what is directly implied in their definitions.
  • n essence Hence The distinctive characteristic; that which is expressed by the definition of any term: as, the essence of a miser's character is avarice.
  • n essence That part of anything which gives it its individual character or quality: as, this summary contains the essence of the book.
  • n essence Existence; being.
  • n essence An elementary ingredient or constituent; anything uncompounded: as, the fifth essence (that is, the fifth element in the philosophy of Aristotle, or the upper air, the other four being, in their order, earth, water, air, and fire). See quintessence.
  • n essence Anything of ethereal, pure, or heavenly substance; anything immaterial.
  • n essence Any kind of matter which, being an ingredient or a constituent of some better-known substance, gives it its peculiar character; an extract; especially, an oil distilled at a comparatively low temperature from a plant in which it already exists: as, essence of peppermint. In pharmacy the term is applied also to solutions of such oils in alcohol, to strong alcoholic tinctures, etc.
  • n essence Perfume; odor; scent; also, the volatile matter constituting perfume.
  • n essence Importance; moment; essentiality.
  • essence To perfume; scent.
  • n essence The French designation for oil of cajeput.
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• Interesting fact: The custom of saying "Bless you" when someone sneezes was first used by ancients when they believed that breath was the essence of life, and when you sneeze a part of you life is escaping. Evil spirits rush into your body and occupy the empty space. By saying "God bless you" the speaker is protecting the sneezer from that spirits.
• • n Essence es′ens the inner distinctive nature of anything: the qualities which make any object what it is: a being: the extracted virtues of any drug: the solution in spirits of wine of a volatile or essential oil: a perfume
  • n Essence something necessary: a leading principle
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• Felix Mendelssohn

  

  “The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.”
• William Salter

  

  “As the essence of courage is to stake one's life on a possibility, so the essence of faith is to believe that the possibility exists.”
• Francis Picabia

  

  “The essence of a man is found in his faults.”
• Sir Henry Taylor

  

  “He who gives what he would as readily throw away, gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self sacrifice.”
• Ralph Waldo Emerson

  

  “The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.”
• James A. Froude

  

  “The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.”

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