noun

• Essential nature or essence.

  See also in esse

  ‘two traditions, each of whose esse is opposition to the central tenets of the other’

  More example sentences

  • ‘As potential to, and receptive of esse, essence is thus a principle through which and in which a thing exists.’
  • ‘We see here clearly how Thomas has appropriated Plato's thought for his own ‘existential’ (in the sense of esse) purposes.’
  • ‘Essence is the intrinsic limitation of esse, the crystallization of existence, bordered by nothingness.’

  Synonyms

  quintessence, soul, spirit, ethos, nature, life, lifeblood, core, heart, centre, crux, nub, nucleus, kernel, marrow, meat, pith, gist, substance, principle, central part, fundamental quality, basic quality, essential part, intrinsic nature, sum and substance, reality, actuality