need

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Middle English need, nede, partly from Old English nīed, nēad (“necessity, inevitableness, need, urgent requirement, compulsion, duty; errand, business; difficulty, hardship, distress, trouble, pain; violence, force”), from Proto-Germanic *naudiz, *nauþiz (“need, trouble, force, distress, compulsion, fate, destiny”), from Proto-Indo-European *nAut- (“torment, misfortune”), from Proto-Indo-European *nāw- (“the dead, corpse”); and partly from Old English nēod (“desire, longing; zeal, eagerness, diligence, earnestness, earnest endeavor; pleasure, delight”), from Proto-Germanic *neudō, *neudaz (“wish, urge, desire, longing”), from Proto-Indo-European *new- (“to incline, tend, move, push, nod, wave”). Cognate with Scots nede (“need”), North Frisian nud (“hardship, danger, fear, self-defense, compulsion, control”), West Frisian need (“need”), Dutch nood (“need, want, distress, peril”), German Not (“need, distress, necessity, hardship”), Swedish nöd (“distress, need, necessity, want”), Icelandic neyð, nauð (“distress, emergency, need”), North Frisian njoe (“requirement, foredeal, benefit, convenience”), Middle Low German nüt (“desire, need, longing”), Middle High German niet (“longing, desire, eagerness, zeal”), German niedlich (“desirable, appealing, lovely, cute”). More at needly.

Noun

need (plural needs)

  1. (countable and uncountable) A requirement for something.
    There's no need to speculate; we can easily find out for sure.
    She grew irritated with his constant need for attention.
    Our needs are not being met.
  2. Something required.
    I've always tried to have few needs beyond food, clothing and shelter.
Usage notes
  • Adjectives often used with "need": urgent, dire, desperate, strong, unmet, bad, basic, critical, essential, big, terrible, modest, elementary, daily, everyday, special, educational, environmental, human, personal, financial, emotional, medical, nutritional, spiritual, public, developmental, organizational, legal, fundamental, audio-visual, psychological, corporate, societal, psychosocial, functional, additional, caloric, private, monetary, physiological, mental.
Derived terms
Derived terms
Translations
something needed

Etymology 2

From Old English nēodian.

Verb

need (third-person singular simple present needs, present participle needing, simple past and past participle needed)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To be necessary (to someone).
  2. (transitive) To have an absolute requirement for.
    Living things need water to survive.
    • 2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, BBC Sport:
      Scotland needed a victory by eight points to have a realistic chance of progressing to the knock-out stages, and for long periods of a ferocious contest looked as if they might pull it off.
  3. (transitive) To want strongly; to feel that one must have something.
    After ten days of hiking, I needed a shower and a shave.
  4. (modal verb) To be obliged or required (to do something).
    You need not go if you don't want to.
  5. (intransitive) To be required; to be necessary.
    • John Locke
      When we have done it, we have done all that is in our power, and all that needs.
Usage notes
  • The verb need is construed in a few different ways:
    • With a direct object, as in “I need your help.”
    • With a to-infinitive, as in “I need to go.” Here, the subject of need serves implicitly as the subject of the infinitive.
    • With a clause of the form “for [object] to [verb phrase]”, or simply “[object] to [verb phrase]” as in “I need for this to happen” or “I need this to happen.” In both variants, the object serves as the subject of the infinitive.
    • As a modal verb, with a bare infinitive; in negative polarity contexts, such as questions (“Need I say more?”), with negative expressions such as not (“It need not happen today”; “No one need ever know”), and with similar constructions (“There need only be a few”; “it need be signed only by the president”; “I need hardly explain the error”). Need in this use does not have inflected forms, aside from the contraction needn’t.
    • With a gerund-participle, as in “The car needs washing”, or (in certain dialects) with a past participle, as in “The car needs washed”[1] (both meaning roughly “The car needs to be washed”).
    • With a direct object and a predicative complement, as in “We need everyone here on time” (meaning roughly “We need everyone to be here on time”) or “I need it gone” (meaning roughly “I need it to be gone”).
    • In certain dialects, and colloquially in certain others, with an unmarked reflexive pronoun, as in “I need me a car.”
  • A sentence such as “I need you to sit down” or “you need to sit down” is more polite than the bare command “sit down”, but less polite than “please sit down”. It is considered somewhat condescending and infantilizing, hence dubbed by some “the kindergarten imperative”, but is quite common in American usage.[1]
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
to have an absolute requirement for
to want strongly
to be obliged to
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

References

  1. ^ “You Need To Read This: How need to vanquished have to, must, and should.” by Ben Yagoda, Slate, July 17, 2006

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West Frisian

Noun

need c

  1. need

Derived terms

  • needsaaklik adj
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Last modified on 20 May 2013, at 13:03