sufficiens

Sufficiens is a Latin adjective and present participle derived from the verb sufficere, meaning to be enough or to suffice. In Latin grammar it functions as an agreeing modifier, indicating adequacy or sufficiency, and as the present participle translating roughly as “sufficient” or “providing what is needed.”

In usage, sufficiens can describe a noun as adequate for a purpose. For example, in classical or medieval Latin, it may appear in phrases signaling that something is sufficient for a given end or task. The term also appears in scholastic and philosophical Latin, where it helps form technical expressions such as condicio sufficiens, meaning a sufficient condition, in contrast to condicio necessaria, a necessary condition. These phrases have carried into many modern discussions of logic and philosophy through Latin translations.

Etymologically, sufficiens comes from sufficere, the verb “to suffice,” which in turn is built from a prefix indicating augmentation or support and a core meaning related to meeting a need. The word is typically used in contexts where the adequacy of a thing, action, or argument is being evaluated.

Related forms include sufficiens as an adjective that agrees with nouns in gender, number, and case, and it can function in participial clauses where the action of sufficing is described concurrently with another action. In contemporary English-language scholarship, sufficiens is encountered primarily in Latin phrases and glosses within legal, philosophical, or literary texts, where precise notions of sufficiency and adequacy are discussed.