Sine qua non

A sine qua non, refers to a necessary action or condition for something.

Origin

It came from a Latin legal term for "[a condition] without which it could not be". Also, sine qua non causation is the formal word for "but-for causation." As a Latin word, it occurs in the work of Boethius (c. 480–524 AD) and came from Aristotelian expressions. 

In Classical Latin, the phrase  was used. In later Latin, the phrase was also used with , an error in translation as  means construction rather than condition. It has gone into common usage, including English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.

Footnotes

References

Category:Legal terms
Category:Latin phrases