- need
- need n Need, necessity, exigency may all denote either a state or condition requiring something as essential or indispensable or the thing required.Need implies pressure and urgency arising either from external or internal causes or forces; it may merely suggest the call of an appetite or demand for emotional or intellectual satisfaction{
he is in need of food
}{children have a need for affection
}{he felt the need of an education
}or it may imply circumstances (as a breakdown or interruption of activity, poverty, a storm, or a threat of war) that expose a lack of or create a demand for something indispensable (as to the well-being, protection, security, success, or functioning of those or the one concerned){the need of a city for an adequate water supply
}{provide food and lodging for those in need
}{the European war has taught Americans the need for a two-ocean navy
}{order and discipline were the crying needs— Malone
}Necessity, though often interchanged with need, usually carries a stronger suggestion of an imperative demand or of a compelling cause{telephone me only in case of necessity
}{as soon as war is declared, every nation or institution must subordinate all other considerations to the necessity of victory— Inge
}{necessity rather than charity was responsible for Republican commitments to the United Nations— Feuer
}{amid these malign forces, our haunting anxiety and our paramount necessity is the defense of our country— Hoover
}Necessity may also apply to a compelling principle or abstract force inherent in nature or in the constitution of a thing and inevitable in its operation or inescapable in its results{there is no logical necessity apparent in the conclusions you have reached
}{such families get the necessities of life regardless of prices. To them differences in price levels mean only a difference in luxuries— T. W. Arnold
}{one of the unhappy necessities of human existence is that we have to "find things out for ourselves"— T. S. Eliot
}Exigency (see also JUNCTURE)implies the compulsion of necessity or occasionally of an inherent compelling principle, especially as a result of such special circumstances as a crisis, an emergency, or an accident, that imposes severe restrictions or great stress and strain; in either case, the term emphasizes, more than either of the preceding words, extreme urgency, demands of a peremptory and exacting character, and difficulties that cannot be easily overcome{figures which are doing nothing in particular . . . striking an attitude which is dictated not by the inner necessities of balance or motion, but by the exigencies of the composition— Binyon
}{such travel exigencies as having to scout around for a room when you're tired— Joseph
}{it may be argued that the exigencies of their work—the tension, the deadline ... the abrupt arrivals and departures—drove them to alcohol— Hubbell
}Analogous words: *stress, strain, pressure: *lack, want, dearth, absence, defect, privation: *poverty, indigence, penury, destitution, privation, wantneed vb *lack, want, require
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
