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

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{

children have a need for affection

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{

he felt the need of an education

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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)

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the need of a city for an adequate water supply

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{

provide food and lodging for those in need

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the European war has taught Americans the need for a two-ocean navy

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order and discipline were the crying needs— Malone

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Necessity, though often interchanged with need, usually carries a stronger suggestion of an imperative demand or of a compelling cause

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telephone me only in case of necessity

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as soon as war is declared, every nation or institution must subordinate all other considerations to the necessity of victory— Inge

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necessity rather than charity was responsible for Republican commitments to the United Nations— Feuer

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amid these malign forces, our haunting anxiety and our paramount necessity is the defense of our country— Hoover

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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

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there is no logical necessity apparent in the conclusions you have reached

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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

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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

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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

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such travel exigencies as having to scout around for a room when you're tired— Joseph

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{

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, want

need vb *lack, want, require

Analogous words: *demand, require, claim, exact: *long, hanker, pine, yearn, hunger, thirst: crave, covet, *desire, wish