need
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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[edit] English
[edit] Pronunciation
[edit] Etymology 1
From Old English nēd.
[edit] Noun
need (plural needs)
- (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.
- Something required.
- I've always tried to have few needs beyond food, clothing and shelter.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Derived terms
Derived terms
[edit] Translations
something needed
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[edit] Etymology 2
From Old English nēodian.
[edit] Verb
need (third-person singular simple present needs, present participle needing, simple past and past participle needed)
- (obsolete) To be necessary (to someone).
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.ix:
- More ample spirit, then hitherto was wount, / Here needes me [...].
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.ix:
- (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.
- (transitive) To want strongly; to feel that one must have something.
- After ten days of hiking, I needed a shower and a shave.
- (modal verb) To be obliged or required (to do something).
- You need not go if you don't want to.
[edit] 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; only 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”; “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]
[edit] Derived terms
[edit] Translations
to have an absolute requirement for
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to want strongly
to be obliged to
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- 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
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[edit] References
- ^ “You Need To Read This: How need to vanquished have to, must, and should.” by Ben Yagoda, Slate, July 17, 2006
[edit] Statistics
[edit] External links
- need in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- need in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
[edit] Anagrams
[edit] West Frisian
[edit] Noun
need c.
[edit] Derived terms
- needsaaklik adj
