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verb

Need v. t. (past & past part. needed; pres. part. needing) To be in want of; to have cause or occasion for; to lack; to require, as supply or relief. "Other creatures all day long Rove idle, unemployed, and less need rest." Note: With another verb, need is used like an auxiliary, generally in a negative sentence expressing requirement or obligation, and in this use it undergoes no change of termination in the third person singular of the present tense. "And the lender need not fear he shall be injured."

Need v. i. To be wanted; to be necessary. "When we have done it, we have done all that is in our power, and all that needs."

noun

Need n.

A state that requires supply or relief; pressing occasion for something; necessity; urgent want. "And the city had no need of the sun." "I have no need to beg." "Be governed by your needs, not by your fancy."

Want of the means of subsistence; poverty; indigence; destitution. "Famine is in thy cheeks; Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes."

That which is needful; anything necessary to be done; (pl.) necessary things; business. (Obs.)

Situation of need; peril; danger. (Obs.)

Synonyms: Exigency; emergency; strait; extremity; necessity; distress; destitution; poverty; indigence; want; penury. Need, Necessity. Necessity is stronger than need; it places us under positive compulsion. We are frequently under the necessity of going without that of which we stand very greatly in need. It is also with the corresponding adjectives; necessitous circumstances imply the direct pressure of suffering; needy circumstances, the want of aid or relief.

adverb

Need adv. Of necessity. See Needs. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Need'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Need" Quotes from Famous Books

... voice of finality, his amusement suddenly giving way once more to sternness. "I've listened to you because you seemed to be full of talk an' I was willin' to let you get it off your chest, but I don't need counsel from any cub of a boy. I'm nigh onto fifty years old an' I've run my family all these years. I had enough brains to get on with before you was born an' if you've got all the sense you think you've got, you got it ...

— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... it, or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable to assert it, and especially to persist in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, ...

— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln

... exist the most perfect harmony of views. He would exert himself to place society on its real basis, and to relieve the sufferings of a people who had borne such generous and intelligent testimony. He would endeavour to restore to the government the moral force of which it stood in need, and to maintain peace and order. He had called around him men distinguished for talent and patriotism, who, notwithstanding the differences of their political origin, would assist him in consolidating the new institutions of the country. He then eulogised the becoming conduct and ...

— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... and that all such results are transitory, while immortality is the fruit of meditation on Brahman. Possessing such knowledge, a person desirous of final release may at once proceed to the enquiry into Brahman; and what need is there of a systematic consideration of religious duty (i.e. of the study of the Purva Mimms)?—If this reasoning were valid, we reply, the person desirous of release need not even apply himself ...

— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... gave back her old servant's look in silence, and seemed to assent. Yet I, though I was but a lad of sixteen, could see what passed in that look of theirs. I knew that surely my father had fallen, and that need ...

— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler

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