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Fr. essence, ad. L. essentia, f. *essent-em, fictitious pr. pple. of esse to be, in imitation of Gr. {omicron}{ulenis}{sigma}{giacu}{alpha} being, f. {olenis}{nu}{tau}-, stem of pr. pple. of {epsilon}{ilenisfrown}{nu}{alpha}{iota} to be. Cf. Pr. essentia, Sp. esencia, It. essenza.
*Being, existence, viewed as a fact or as a property possessed by something. Obs.
*Something that is; an existence, entity. Now restricted to spiritual or immaterial entities.
1576 FLEMING Panop. Ep. 284 Nature hath not given unto men their essence and being, to be..in idlenesse..but..still to bee doinge. 1579 LYLY Euphues (Arb.) 166 How canst thou abide his presence, that beleevedst not his essence? 1605 SYLVESTER Du Bartas I. i. Argt. (1605-7) I. 1 World not eternall.. But of meere Nothing God it Essence gaue. 1622 FLETCHER Sp. Curate IV. iv, I would resign my Essence, that he were As happy as my Love cou'd fashion him. a1688 CUDWORTH Immut. Mor. (1731) 2 None of these things have in Nature any Essence of their own.[http://dictionary.oed.com]
==Philosophy==
In [[philosophy]], '''essence''' is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its [[identity]]. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the object or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. The concept originates with Aristotle, who used the Greek expression ''to ti ên einai'', literally 'the what it was to be', or sometimes the shorter phrase ''to ti esti'', literally 'the what it is,' for the same idea. This phrase presented such difficulties for his Latin translators that they coined the word ''essentia'' to represent the whole expression. For Aristotle and his scholastic followers the notion of essence is closely linked to that of definition (''horismos'') [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/ S. Marc Cohen, "Aristotle's Metaphysics"]
In [[philosophy]], '''essence''' is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its [[identity]]. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the object or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. The concept originates with Aristotle, who used the Greek expression ''to ti ên einai'', literally 'the what it was to be', or sometimes the shorter phrase ''to ti esti'', literally 'the what it is,' for the same idea. This phrase presented such difficulties for his Latin translators that they coined the word ''essentia'' to represent the whole expression. For Aristotle and his scholastic followers the notion of essence is closely linked to that of definition (''horismos'') [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/ S. Marc Cohen, "Aristotle's Metaphysics"]