Essence

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈɛsəns/

Definitions

1. The fundamental nature or most important quality of something that determines its character
2. The intrinsic nature or core quality that defines an entity or idea in its most basic form
3. The essential nature or inherent aspect that represents the true character and identity of a person, object, or concept

Etymology: Latin had no native word for the philosophical idea of "being" as a thing's inner core, so scholars made one. Translating Aristotle's Greek "ousia" (being, substance), Latin writers built "essentia" from "esse" (to be). The Greek term itself was a participle of "eimi" (to be), so the chain runs from one verb of existence through two languages to the English noun. English first borrowed the word through Middle French "essence" and it appeared in Middle English. Its early philosophical sense was the fundamental nature that makes a thing what it is, and that meaning is still at the heart of the word today. Over time it also came to name the concentrated extract of a plant or substance, as in "essence of lavender," a sense that has no obvious link to "being" until you see that such extracts were treated as the distilled core of the original material.

Synonyms: substance, nature, core

Antonyms: superficiality, externality