 We end this overview of the modal characterization of the essential/accidental property distinction by mentioning a notion that is close to, but different from, that of an essential property. It is easy to confuse the notion of an essential property—a property that a thing could not lack—with the notion of a property that a thing could not lose, so it is worth taking a minute to reflect on the difference. Of course, any property that a person could not lack is one that that person could not lose, since by losing a property the person comes to lack it. Still, the “reverse” does not hold. There are properties that a person could not lose—like the property of having spent Christmas 2007 in Tennessee—that are nevertheless not essential to that person.