NEED • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Need

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Need

verb

(past & past part. needed; pres. part. needing)

1.

Require as useful, just, or proper. Synonyms: ask, call for, demand, involve, necessitate, postulate, require, take. "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"

2.

Have need of. Synonyms: require, want.

3.

Have or feel a need for.

noun

1.

A condition requiring relief. Synonym: demand. "God has no need of men to accomplish His work" , "There is a demand for jobs"

2.

Anything that is necessary but lacking. Synonym: want. "I tried to supply his wants"

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. Synonyms: motivation, motive. "He acted with the best of motives"

4.

A state of extreme poverty or destitution. Synonyms: indigence, pauperism, pauperization, penury. "A general state of need exists among the homeless"

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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Need" Quotes from Famous Books

... at him in amazement. "Just what in the devil do you think roboteachers are for? They're supposed to teach you. If you knew arithmetic we wouldn't need roboteachers." ...

— There Will Be School Tomorrow • V. E. Thiessen

... at this point, but it is here that the most important part of the life of Jesus begins,—His suffering, death, and resurrection. Other accounts of Buddha's death need not here be considered, even though they reveal ...

— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner

... alike, when some one or two prime and able wits in the school, [Greek: auto didaktoi] (which he culs out to admiration if strangers come, as a costardmonger his fairest pippins) like fleet hovnds go away with the game, when the rest need helping over a stile a mile behind: hence, being either quite discouraged in themselves, or taken away by their friends (who for the most part measure their learning by the form they set in), they take leave of their books while ...

— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... too, old chap; only I don't see why the doctor need have prohibited your talking about the affair. We've all been thinking you went through untold horrors, when it was ...

— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... disturb him," he said; "but there is no need to mind; he will sleep a great deal for days, till this state of exhaustion has passed off. My dear boys, what a night we had! I wonder that any ...

— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

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