Need
from
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
need
n 1: 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" [syn: {need}, {demand}]
2: anything that is necessary but lacking; "he had sufficient
means to meet his simple needs"; "I tried to supply his
wants" [syn: {need}, {want}]
3: 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" [syn: {motivation}, {motive}, {need}]
4: a state of extreme poverty or destitution; "their indigence
appalled him"; "a general state of need exists among the
homeless" [syn: {indigence}, {need}, {penury}, {pauperism},
{pauperization}]
v 1: 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" [syn: {necessitate}, {ask},
{postulate}, {need}, {require}, {take}, {involve}, {call
for}, {demand}] [ant: {eliminate}, {obviate}, {rid of}]
2: have need of; "This piano wants the attention of a competent
tuner" [syn: {want}, {need}, {require}]
3: have or feel a need for; "always needing friends and money"
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Need \Need\ (n[=e]d), v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Needed}; p. pr. & vb.
n. {Needing}.] [See {Need}, n. Cf. AS. n[=y]dan to force,
Goth. nau[thorn]jan.]
To be in want of; to have cause or occasion for; to lack; to
require, as supply or relief.
[1913 Webster]
Other creatures all day long
Rove idle, unemployed, and less need rest. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
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." --Anacharsis (Trans. ).
[1913 Webster]
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Need \Need\ (n[=e]d), n. [OE. need, neod, nede, AS. ne['a]d,
n[=y]d; akin to D. nood, G. not, noth, Icel. nau[eth]r, Sw. &
Dan. n["o]d, Goth. nau[thorn]s.]
1. A state that requires supply or relief; pressing occasion
for something; necessity; urgent want.
[1913 Webster]
And the city had no need of the sun. --Rev. xxi.
23.
[1913 Webster]
I have no need to beg. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
Be governed by your needs, not by your fancy. --Jer.
Taylor.
[1913 Webster]
2. Want of the means of subsistence; poverty; indigence;
destitution. --Chaucer.
[1913 Webster]
Famine is in thy cheeks;
Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
3. That which is needful; anything necessary to be done;
(pl.) necessary things; business. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
[1913 Webster]
4. Situation of need; peril; danger. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
[1913 Webster]
Syn: Exigency; emergency; strait; extremity; necessity;
distress; destitution; poverty; indigence; want; penury.
Usage: {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.
[1913 Webster]
from
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
169 Moby Thesaurus words for "need":
absence, ardor, arrearage, ask, bare cupboard, bare necessities,
bare subsistence, basic, be forced, be hurting for, be in for,
be in want, be indicated, be necessary, be obliged, be pinched,
be poor, beggarliness, beggary, break, call, call for,
cannot do otherwise, cannot help but, charge, claim, clamor for,
commitment, committal, concupiscence, constraint, covet, crave,
cry for, cry out for, curiosity, dearth, defalcation, defect,
defectiveness, deficiency, deficit, demand, demand for,
deprivation, desideration, desideratum, desire, destitution,
devoir, difficulty, discontinuity, distress, drive, drought, duty,
eagerness, emergency, empty purse, essential, essentials, exact,
exaction, exigency, extremity, famine, fancy, fantasy, fundamental,
gap, go on welfare, grinding poverty, gripe,
hand-to-mouth existence, hanker, have, have got to, have need to,
have occasion for, have to, hiatus, homelessness, hope, horme,
hunger, impecuniousness, imperfection, impoverishment,
incompleteness, indigence, indispensable, insufficiency,
intellectual curiosity, interval, lack, lacuna, libido, long,
lust for learning, mendicancy, mind, miss, missing link,
moneylessness, must, must item, necessaries, necessary,
necessities, necessitousness, necessity, need for, need to,
needfulness, neediness, needs must, occasion, omission, ought,
outage, passion, paucity, pauperism, pauperization, penury, pinch,
pine, pleasure, pleasure principle, poorness, poverty, prerequire,
prerequirement, prerequisite, privation, require, requirement,
requisite, requisition, right, run short of, scarcity,
sexual desire, shortage, shortcoming, shortfall, should,
sine qua non, starvation, starve, stress, take doing,
the necessary, the needful, thirst, thirst for knowledge, trouble,
ullage, urge, use, want, want doing, wantage, wanting, will,
will and pleasure, wish, wish fulfillment, yearn
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