Need1. (n.) A state that requires supply or relief; pressing occasion for something; necessity; urgent want.
2. (n.) Want of the means of subsistence; poverty; indigence; destitution.
3. (n.) That which is needful; anything necessary to be done; (pl.) necessary things; business.
4. (n.) Situation of need; peril; danger.
5. (n.) To be in want of; to have cause or occasion for; to lack; to require, as supply or relief.
6. (v. i.) To be wanted; to be necessary.
7. (adv.) of necessity. See Needs.
Thesaurus Entries
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