{"id":2735,"date":"2026-04-08T10:26:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=2735"},"modified":"2026-04-08T11:44:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T15:44:52","slug":"word-of-the-week-sine-qua-non","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2026\/04\/08\/word-of-the-week-sine-qua-non\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Sine Qua Non"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Boethius\"<\/a>Three words this week, for the price of one. I find this term useful; though I don’t use it myself, I have seen it recently in long-form journalism. Wikipedia has an entire entry<\/a> on it, so here are a few highlights. See that Wikipedia entry for its application in writing about medicine and the law.<\/p>\n

Let’s get the definition out of the way: a mandatory precondition, an essential element, a key ingredient. The full Latin term is condicio sine qua non. <\/i>So “today, a valid passport is a sine qua non<\/em> of international travel,” or “to govern well at any level today, knowledge of macroeconomics appears to be a sine qua non<\/em> for successful leadership.”<\/p>\n

The origin is ancient, as we can tell from its Latin roots. That meaning, as given in Wikipedia “without which [there is] nothing,” appeared in the work of the early Christian philosopher Boethius. Earlier still, Aristotle used its Greek equivalent. For formal writing, I always like how a Latin phrase or Latinate word elevates the occasion, as does my taste for dress shirts and sometimes a tie when in the classroom.<\/p>\n

What are some other expressions where our phrase might impress readers and make your prose more formal?\u00a0 We simply lack good alternatives in English. “Must have” sounds blunt to me.<\/p>\n

Summer break is a sine qua non<\/em> for most academics and their students. So are frequent posts in a successful blog.As Spring turns to Summer and students leave for break, I’ll still be posting here. Send metaphors and words to cover by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below. Want to write a guest entry? Let me know!<\/p>\n

See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Image of Boethius<\/a> from Wikipedia.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three words this week, for the price of one. I find this term useful; though I don’t use it myself, I have seen it recently in long-form journalism. Wikipedia has an entire entry on it, so here are a few highlights. See that Wikipedia entry for its application in writing about medicine and the law. … Continue reading Word of the Week! Sine Qua Non<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2516,87405,87402,87406,2520,40197],"tags":[2522],"class_list":["post-2735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-etymology","category-legal-writing","category-loan-word","category-usage","category-vocabulary","tag-word-of-the-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-I7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2735"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2739,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2735\/revisions\/2739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}