necessitate
ne·ces·sit·ate/nəˈsɛsəˌteɪt/verb
necessitate is spelled N-E-C-E-S-S-I-T-A-T-E, 4 syllables: ne·ces·sit·ate. The wrong spelling people search most is necessiate: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 66 of all searches for the word. Necessitate is a verb meaning “To make necessary; to behove; to require (something) to be brought about”.
How many letters and syllables are in necessitate?
| Letters | 11: N-E-C-E-S-S-I-T-A-T-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4: ne·ces·sit·ate |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 35,320th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, necessiate, about 10 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell necessitate?
Necessitate is spelled N-E-C-E-S-S-I-T-A-T-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 66 of the searches for necessitate in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is necessitate?
Necessitate appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 35,320th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce necessitate?
- UK /nɪˈsɛsɪteɪt/
- US /nəˈsɛsəˌteɪt/
Necessitate has 4 syllables, split ne·ces·sit·ate in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-necessitate.ogg, En-au-necessitate.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of necessitate
- necessitates present, singular, he/she/it
- necessitating participle, present
- necessitated participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does necessitate mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To make necessary; to behove; to require (something) to be brought about.
The early departure of her plane necessitated her waking up at 4 a.m.
- 2
To force (a person) into a certain course of action; compel.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Necessitate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense to make necessary; require something to be brought about:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | nécessiter, requérir, demander, exiger |
| German | erfordern, zwingen |
| Portuguese | necessitar |
| Spanish | hacer necesario, exigir |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does necessitate come from?
From earlier necessitat, from Medieval Latin necessitātus, perfect past participle of necessitō (“to make necessary”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix, of participial origin)), from Classical Latin necessitās (“necessity, need”) + -ō. Necessitās is derived from necesse (“unavoidable”) (from ne- (“not”) + cessus (“conceded, given up, yielded”). By surface analysis, necessitō + -ate.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).