need

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   anything that is necessary but lacking

   They had sufficient means to meet their simple needs.

2. 2
   noun

   a condition requiring relief

   The nurse satisfied the patient's need for affection.

3. 3
   verb

   have or feel a need for

   always needing friends and money

4. 4
   noun

   A requirement for something; something needed.

   There's no need to speculate; we can easily find out for sure.

5. 5
   noun

   Lack of means of subsistence; poverty; indigence; destitution.

   Famine is in thy cheeks; Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes.

6. 6
   verb

   To have an absolute requirement for.

   Living things need water to survive.

7. 7
   verb

   To want strongly; to feel that one must have something.

   After ten days of hiking, I needed a shower and a shave.

8. 8
   verb

   To be obliged or required (to do something).

   I need not go if I don't want to, need I?

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”). * Old English nēod (“desire, longing”), from Proto-West Germanic *niudi (“desire, eagerness”), from Proto-Indo-European *new- (“to incline, tend, move, push, nod, wave”).