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need

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Need and neēd

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English need, nede, a merger of two terms:

Noun

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need (countable and uncountable, plural needs)

  1. (countable and uncountable) A requirement for something; something needed.
    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.
    I've always tried to have few needs beyond food, clothing and shelter.
    • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
      Being so great, I have no need to beg.
    • 1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Francis Ashe […], →OCLC:
      Be governed by your needs, not by your fancy.
    • 2014 June 14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891:
      One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. […] But out of sight is out of mind. And that, together with the inherent yuckiness of the subject, means that many old sewers have been neglected and are in dire need of repair.
  2. Lack of means of subsistence; poverty; indigence; destitution.
Derived terms
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Collocations
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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

Translations
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See also

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Etymology 2

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From Middle English neden, from Old English nēodian.

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To have an absolute requirement for.
    Living things need water to survive.
    You do not always need to go to the library to study. You may use the Internet.
    • 2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in 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.
  2. (transitive) To want strongly; to feel that one must have something.
    After ten days of hiking, I needed a shower and a shave.
    • 2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:
      Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.
  3. (modal, chiefly in the negative) To be obliged or required (to do something).
    You need not go if you don't want to.
  4. (intransitive) To be required; to be necessary.
  5. (obsolete, transitive) To be necessary (to someone).
Usage notes
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  • 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?” “Need you have paid so much?”), with negative expressions such as not (“It need not happen today”; “No one need ever know”), and with similar constructions (“There need only be one”; “it need be signed only by the president”; “I need hardly explain it”). 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 American 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.[2]
  • In older forms of English, when the pronoun thou was in active use, and verbs used -est for distinct second-person singular indicative forms, the verb need had the form needest, and had neededst for its past tense.
  • Similarly, when the ending -eth was in active use for third-person singular present indicative forms, the form needeth was used.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

References

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  1. ^ "Needs washed" by Zach Maher and Jim Wood, Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English in North America, 2011
  2. ^ “You Need To Read This: How need to vanquished have to, must, and should.” by Ben Yagoda, Slate, July 17, 2006

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Estonian

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Etymology

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Compare dialectal Finnish net.

Pronoun

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need (genitive nende, partitive neid)

  1. these, those

Declension

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Declension of see (irregular)
singular plural
nominative see need
genitive selle nende
partitive seda neid
illative sellesse / sesse nendesse / neisse
inessive selles / ses nendes / neis
elative sellest / sest nendest / neist
allative sellele nendele / neile
adessive sellel / sel nendel / neil
ablative sellelt / selt nendelt / neilt
translative selleks / seks nendeks / neiks
terminative selleni nendeni
essive sellena nendena
abessive selleta nendeta
comitative sellega nendega

See also

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Estonian personal pronouns
singular plural
long short long short
1st person mina ma meie me
2nd person familiar sina sa teie te
polite Teie Te
3rd person animate tema ta nemad nad
inanimate see need

Votic

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Proto-Finnic *nek (the nominative plural ending has been replaced with the standard ending -d), from Proto-Uralic *ne.

Pronunciation

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Pronoun

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need

  1. (demonstrative) those

Inflection

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Inflection of need
singular plural
nominative see need
nee
genitive sene neije
nedʹdʹe
accusative sene neije
nedʹdʹe
partitive sitä neite
illative sihe neise
inessive senez neiz
elative senesse neisse
allative sele
selle 		neile
neille
adessive selle neille
ablative selte neilte
translative senessi neissi
**) the terminative is formed by adding the suffix -ssaa to the short illative (sg) or the genitive.
***) the comitative is formed by adding the suffix -ka to the genitive.

See also

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Votic demonstratives
proximal neutral/distal
singular kase see
plural kaned need

West Frisian

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Etymology

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From Old Frisian nēd, nād, from Proto-Germanic *naudiz.

Noun

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need c (plural neden)

  1. need

Derived terms

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Further reading

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  • “need”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011
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