Need the meaning of a word

Princeton’s WordNetRate this definition:1.6 / 31 votes

1. need, demandnoun

   a condition requiring relief

   «she satisfied his need for affection»; «God has no need of men to accomplish His work»; «there is a demand for jobs»

2. need, wantnoun

   anything that is necessary but lacking

   «he had sufficient means to meet his simple needs»; «I tried to supply his wants»

3. motivation, motive, neednoun

   the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior

   «we did not understand his motivation»; «he acted with the best of motives»

4. indigence, need, penury, pauperism, pauperizationverb

   a state of extreme poverty or destitution

   «their indigence appalled him»; «a general state of need exists among the homeless»

5. necessitate, ask, postulate, need, require, take, involve, call for, demandverb

   require as useful, just, or proper

   «It takes nerve to do what she did»; «success usually requires hard work»; «This job asks a lot of patience and skill»; «This position demands a lot of personal sacrifice»; «This dinner calls for a spectacular dessert»; «This intervention does not postulate a patient’s consent»

6. want, need, requireverb

   have need of

   «This piano wants the attention of a competent tuner»

7. needverb

   have or feel a need for

   «always needing friends and money»

Samuel Johnson’s DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. NEEDnoun

   Etymology: neod , Saxon; nood, Dutch.

   1. Exigency; pressing difficulty; necessity.

   The very stream of his life, and the business he hath helmed, must, upon a warranted need, give him a better proclamation.
   William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure.

   That spirit that first rush’d on thee,
   In the camp of Dan,
   Be efficacious in thee now at need.
   John Milton, Agonistes.

   In thy native innocence proceed,
   And summon all thy reason at thy need.
   Dryden.

   2. Want; distressful poverty.

   Famine is in thy cheeks;
   Need and oppression stare within thine eyes,
   Contempt and beggary hang upon thy back.
   William Shakespeare.

   Defer not to give to him that is in need.
   Ecclus. iv. 3.

   The distant heard, by fame, her pious deeds;
   And laid her up for their extreamest needs;
   A future cordial for a fainting mind.
   Dryden.

   God sometimes calls upon thee to relieve the needs of thy brother, sometimes the necessities of thy country, and sometimes the urgent wants of thy prince.
   Robert South, Sermons.

   3. Want; lack of any thing for use.

   God grant we never may have need of you.
   William Shakespeare.

   God who sees all things intuitively, neither stands in need of logic, nor uses it.
   Thomas Baker.

2. To Needverb

   To want; to lack; to be in want of; to require.

   Etymology: from the noun.

   Basest beggars
   Are in the poorest thing superfluous;
   Allow not nature more than nature needs.
   Man’s life is cheap as beasts.
   William Shakespeare, K. Lear.

   The whole need not a physician, but the sick.
   Matt ix. 12.

   Thou thy regal sceptre shalt lay by,
   For regal sceptre then no more shall need.
   John Milton, P. Lost.

   To ask whether the will has freedom? is to ask, whether one power has another? A question too absurd to need an answer.
   John Locke.

3. To Needverb

   1. To be wanted; to be necessary.

   More ample spirit than hitherto was wont,
   Here needs me rie whiles the famous ancestors
   Of my most dreadful sovereign I recount.
   Edmund Spenser.

   When we have done it, we have done all that is in our power, and all that needs.
   John Locke.

   2. To have necessity of any thing; to be in want of any thing.

   We have instances of perception whilst we are asleep: but how incoherent and how little conformable to the perfection of a rational being, those who are acquainted with dreams need not be told.
   John Locke.

   He that would discourse of things, as they agreed in the complex idea of extension and solidity, needed but use the word body.
   John Locke.

WikipediaRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. need

   The Northern European Enclosure Dam (NEED) is a proposed solution to the problem of rising ocean levels in Northern Europe. It would be a megaproject, involving the construction of two massive dams in the English Channel and the North Sea; the former between France and England, and the latter between Scotland and Norway. The concept was conceived by the oceanographers Sjoerd Groeskamp and Joakim Kjellsson.As of 2020, the scheme is largely a thought experiment intended to demonstrate the extreme cost of engineered solutions to the effects of climate change. The scheme’s authors describe it as «more of a warning than a solution».Groeskamp estimates that the NEED will cost 250 to 500 billion euros and will take 50 to 100 years to complete.

Webster DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Neednoun

   a state that requires supply or relief; pressing occasion for something; necessity; urgent want

2. Neednoun

   want of the means of subsistence; poverty; indigence; destitution

3. Neednoun

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

4. Neednoun

   situation of need; peril; danger

5. Neednoun

   to be in want of; to have cause or occasion for; to lack; to require, as supply or relief

6. Needverb

   to be wanted; to be necessary

7. Needadverb

   of necessity. See Needs

8. Etymology: [See Need, n. Cf. AS. ndan to force, Goth. naujan.]

FreebaseRate this definition:3.0 / 1 vote

1. Need

   A need is something that is necessary for organisms to live a healthy life. Needs are distinguished from wants because a deficiency would cause a clear negative outcome, such as dysfunction or death. Needs can be objective and physical, such as food, or they can be subjective and psychological, such as the need for self-esteem. On a social level, needs are sometimes controversial. Understanding needs and wants is an issue in the fields of politics, social science, and philosophy.

Chambers 20th Century DictionaryRate this definition:4.0 / 2 votes

1. Need

   nēd, n. want of something which one cannot do without: necessity: a state that requires relief: want of the means of living.—v.t. to have occasion for: to want.—ns. Need′-be, a necessity; Need′er; Need′fire, fire produced by friction, to which a certain virtue is superstitiously attached: a beacon generally.—adj. Need′ful, full of need: having need: needy: necessary: requisite.—adv. Need′fully.—n. Need′fulness.—adv. Need′ily.—n. Need′iness.—adj. Need′less (Shak.), having no need: not needed: unnecessary.—adv. Need′lessly.—n. Need′lessness.—adv. Need′ly (Shak.), necessarily.—n. Need′ment, something needed.—adv. Needs, of necessity: indispensably—often used with must, as ‘needs must.’—adj. Need′y, very poor: requisite.—n. Need′yhood.—The needful (slang), ready money. [A.S. néd, niéd, nýd; Dut. nood, Ger. noth.]

Suggested ResourcesRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. need

   Song lyrics by need — Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by need on the Lyrics.com website.

2. NEED

   What does NEED stand for? — Explore the various meanings for the NEED acronym on the Abbreviations.com website.

3. Need

   Need vs. Knead — In this Grammar.com article you will learn the differences between the words Need and Knead.

Surnames Frequency by Census RecordsRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. NEED

   According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Need is ranked #69579 in terms of the most common surnames in America.

   The Need surname appeared 282 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 0 would have the surname Need.

   90.7% or 256 total occurrences were White.
   6% or 17 total occurrences were Black.
   2.1% or 6 total occurrences were of Hispanic origin.

Matched Categories

1. • Be
   • Condition
   • Necessity

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word ‘NEED’ in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #284

2. Written Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word ‘NEED’ in Written Corpus Frequency: #165

3. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word ‘NEED’ in Nouns Frequency: #97

4. Verbs Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word ‘NEED’ in Verbs Frequency: #31

How to pronounce NEED?

How to say NEED in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of NEED in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of NEED in Pythagorean Numerology is: 1

Examples of NEED in a Sentence

1. John Mann:

   Instead he should be joining us in campaigning to leave the EU to help remove the need for further Osborne-imposed austerity.

2. Sebastian Vettel:

   So you need people from outside, investors. The government is not happy to support.

3. Ed Mills:

   What happens if President Trump is unbound by the need to win reelection ? ed Mills’s been pretty bombastic in Ed Mills first term. What does a second term of President Trump look like ?

4. Maddie Hall:

   About 75 % of land worldwide has been degraded due to human activity, how do we develop species that would be able to actually capture carbon on those pieces of land ? You need biotechnology to do that.

5. Kevin Brady:

   We need to take them head-on. I think a good, solid agreement with China could actually create a new era of fair trade with China for our farmers, our workers and our businesses, this is leverage. So keep everyone at the table.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

• يحتاج, ضرورة, حاجة, احتاجArabic
• necessitar, haver de, caldre, requerir, necessitatCatalan, Valencian
• potřeba, potřebovatCzech
• behov, behøveDanish
• brauchen, Notwendigkeit, benötigen, Bedürfnis, BedarfGerman
• χρειάζομαιGreek
• bezoni, bezonoEsperanto
• necesidades, necesidad, necesitarSpanish
• احتیاج داشتن, نیاز داشتن, نیازPersian
• tarve, tarvita, täytyäFinnish
• nécessité, [[être]] [[obligé]] de, besoin, avoir besoin deFrench
• riachtanasIrish
• feumScottish Gaelic
• necesitar, precisar, requirirGalician
• ज़रूरत होना, ज़रूरत, मुहताज होना, जरुरतHindi
• szükségHungarian
• կարիք, կարիք ունենալArmenian
• necessitate, besoniar, besonioInterlingua
• bezono, bezonarIdo
• aver bisogno di, necessità, bisognoItalian
• してはいけない, 要る, 必要Japanese
• ត្រូវការKhmer
• 필요, 요하다Korean
• egeo, desidero, necessitas, debeo, requiro, obligor, necessitudoLatin
• ຕ້ອງການLao
• vajadzība, vajadzētLatvian
• потреба, мора, зорт, треба, нуждаMacedonian
• għand bżonnMaltese
• behoeven, vereisen, moeten hebben, behoefte, moeten, benodigen, nodig hebbenDutch
• trengeNorwegian
• besonhOccitan
• potrzeba, potrzebowaćPolish
• necessidade, precisar, necessitarPortuguese
• basegn, avair basegn daRomansh
• trebui, nevoie, necesitate, cerințăRomanian
• требоваться, нуждаться, необходимость, нужда, потребность, быть нужнымRussian
• trebatiSerbo-Croatian
• potrebovati, rabitiSlovene
• nödgas, behöva, måste, behovSwedish
• అవసరముTelugu
• ต้องการThai
• pangangailanganTagalog
• gereklilik, ihtiyaç duymak, ihtiyaç, gerekmek, gereksinim duymak, ihtiyacı olmak, -malı, gereksinim, lazım olmak, gereksinmek, -meli, eksik, zorunda olmak, gereksinimi olmakTurkish
• нужда, необхідність, потребаUkrainian
• ضرورتUrdu
• cần, muốnVietnamese

Select another language: