need
//niːd//
Forms
- Plural
- needs
- present (v1)
- need
- past (v2)
- needed
- past participle (v3)
- needed
- present participle
- needing
- 3rd person singular
- needs
Definitions
1.A desire or craving for the satisfaction of a requirement perceived as essential or primal.
- Does Tom need to go right now?
- Does Tom need to go right away?
- There is an urgent need for social change.
2.Lack of means of subsistence; poverty; indigence; destitution.
- Does Tom need to go right now?
- Does Tom need to go right away?
- There is an urgent need for social change.
3.A requirement for something; something needed.
- Being so great, I have no need to beg.
- Be governed by your needs, not by your fancy.
- She grew irritated with his constant need for attention.
1.To have an absolute requirement for.
- Living things need water to survive.
- She needed convincing that I was what she really needed.
- You do not always need to go to the library to study. You may use the Internet.
2.To want strongly; to feel that one must have something.
- After ten days of hiking, I needed a shower and a shave.
3.To be obliged or required (to do something).
- I need not go if I don't want to, need I?
- I need never have packed my set of sunglasses - it rained all day every day.
- I was wondering if I need fill in more forms. - No, that's the only one you need fill out.
4.To be required; to be necessary.
- When we have done it, we have done our duty, and all that is in our power, and indeed all that needs.
- Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic who still resists the idea that something drastic needs to happen for him to turn his life around.
Frequency
Overall
Very common· #107
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Very common
- General reading & writing
- Very common
- Academic
- Uncommon
- Literature
- Uncommon
Related words
Etymology
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”).