"In philosophy, ESSENCE, is the atribute 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 orginates with Aristotle, who used the Greek expression to ti en einai, literally 'the what it was to be', or sometimes the shorter phrase to it 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 motion of essence is closely linked to that of definition (horismos)."
