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Definitions

need

[need] / nid /






Usage

What are other ways to say need? The verb need often suggests urgency, stressing the necessity of supplying what is lacking: to need an operation, better food, a match to light the fire. Require, which expresses necessity as strongly as need, occurs most frequently in serious or formal contexts: Your presence at the hearing is required. Successful experimentation requires careful attention to detail. Lack means to be without or to have less than a desirable quantity of something: to lack courage, sufficient money, enough members to make a quorum. 

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Need help deciding which college you can afford, or managing your student loans?

From MarketWatch • Apr. 20, 2026

This year the ceremony will honor “The Joy Luck Club” author Amy Tan with the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement and We Need Diverse Books with the Innovator’s Award.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 15, 2026

Jefferies analysts led by Lloyd Byrne published a report, “Is Crude & Diesel the Next Gold? Longer-Term Oil Price Assumptions Need to Rise,” to this effect.

From Barron's • Apr. 6, 2026

Need to store your luggage somewhere on a layover or before or after your flight so you can explore?

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026

Need a harpoon for that, no two ways about it.

From "The Young Man and the Sea" by Rodman Philbrick




Vocabulary lists containing need


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