In philosophy, the fundamental nature or most important qualities that make something what it is, rather than accidental features.
From Latin essentia, meaning 'being' or 'essence,' derived from the verb esse (to be). The term was heavily used in medieval scholastic philosophy to distinguish what something is from how it appears.
Medieval philosophers obsessed over essentia to solve tricky questions like 'what makes a person a person?' — is it your body, your soul, your memories? The word itself is so fundamental that it literally comes from the Latin word for 'to exist.'
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