need

English Online Dictionary. What means need‎? What does need mean?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: nēd, IPA^(key): /niːd/, [nɪi̯d]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /nid/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): [niːd]
• Homophones: knead, kneed
• Rhymes: -iːd

Etymology 1

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

• Old English nīed (West Saxon), nēd (Mercian), nēad (“necessity, compulsion, want”), from Proto-West Germanic *naudi, from Proto-Germanic *naudiz, from Proto-Indo-European *neh₂w- (“death”).
• Old English nēod (“desire, longing”), from Proto-West Germanic *neud, from Proto-Germanic *neudaz (“wish, urge, desire, longing”), from Proto-Indo-European *new- (“to incline, tend, move, push, nod, wave”).

Noun

need (countable and uncountable, plural needs)

1. (countable and uncountable) A requirement for something; something needed.
2. Lack of means of subsistence; poverty; indigence; destitution.

Derived terms

Collocations

Translations

See also

• in need

Etymology 2

From Middle English neden, from Old English nēodian.

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To have an absolute requirement for.
2. (transitive) To want strongly; to feel that one must have something.
3. (modal, chiefly in the negative) To be obliged or required (to do something).

4. (intransitive) To be required; to be necessary.
5. (obsolete, transitive) To be necessary (to someone).

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?” “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, apart from the contraction needn’t.
  • With a gerund-participle, as in “The car needs washing”, or, in some North American dialects, with a past participle, as in “The car needs washed” (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.

Conjugation

Synonyms

• (desire): desire, wish for, would like, want, will (archaic)
• (lack): be without, lack
• (require): be in need of, require

Derived terms

Translations

References

Further reading

• “need”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “need”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “need”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Dene, Dené, Eden, Ende, deen, dene, eden, ende

Estonian

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *nek (“those”, medial). The nominative form has been extended with the regular nominative plural ending (-d). Compare dialectal Finnish net (“they”, chiefly inanimate).

Pronoun

need (genitive nende, partitive neid)

1. these, those

Declension

See also

Votic

Alternative forms

• nee, ne, ned

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (Luutsa, Liivtšülä) IPA^(key): /ˈneːd/, [ˈneːd̥]
• Rhymes: -eːd̥
• Hyphenation: need

Pronoun

need

1. (demonstrative) those

Inflection

See also

West Frisian

Etymology

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

Noun

need c (plural neden)

1. need

Derived terms

Further reading

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