different between beggary vs need

English

Etymology

From beggar +? -y.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b????i/

Noun

beggary (countable and uncountable, plural beggaries)

1. The state of a beggar; indigence, extreme poverty.
   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, King John, Act II, Scene 1,^[1]

     Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail

     And say there is no sin but to be rich;

     And being rich, my virtue then shall be

     To say there is no vice but beggary.

   • 1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia, London: T. Payne & Son and T. Cadell, Volume I, Book I, Chapter 9, p. 128,^[2]

     […] she does not come hither as a beggar, however well the state of beggary may accord with her poverty: she only sollicits the payment of a bill […]
2. The fact or action of begging.
   • 1848, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton, Chapter 38,^[4]

     […] the landlady […] ushered them into a large garret where twenty or thirty people of all ages and both sexes lay and dozed away the day, choosing the evening and night for their trades of beggary, thieving, or prostitution.

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: Appleton, Chapter 8, p. 126,^[5]

     […] perhaps he would abandon beggary when there was no poor fool about to beg from.

3. Beggarly appearance.
   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 2,^[6]

     […] she looked back to the freedom and the beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret, that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief for her father.

Translations

Adjective

beggary (comparative more beggary, superlative most beggary)

1. (obsolete) beggarly

   • beggary counterfeits

   • early 1600s, Beaumont and Fletcher (attributed), The Nice Valour, Act V, Scene 3, in The Works of Mr. Francis Beaumont, and Mr. John Fletcher, London: J. & R. Tonson and S. Draper, 1750, Volume 10, p. 359,^[7]

     This is Love’s beggary right, that now is ours,

     When Ladies love, and cannot shew their Powers.

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: n?d, IPA^(key): /ni?d/, [n?i?d]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /nid/
• Homophones: knead, kneed
• Rhymes: -i?d

Etymology 1

From Middle English need, nede, a merger of two terms:

• Old English n?ed (West Saxon), n?d (Mercian), n?ad (“necessity, compulsion, want”), from Proto-Germanic *naudiz
• Old English n?od (“desire, longing”), from Proto-Germanic *neudaz (“wish, urge, desire, longing”), from Proto-Indo-European *new- (“to incline, tend, move, push, nod, wave”)

Noun

need (countable and uncountable, plural needs)

1. (countable and uncountable) A requirement for something; something needed.
   • 1650, Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living

     Be governed by your needs, not by your fancy.
2. Lack of means of subsistence; poverty; indigence; destitution.

Usage notes

• Adjectives often used with “need”: urgent, dire, desperate, strong, unmet, bad, basic, critical, essential, big, terrible, modest, elementary, daily, everyday, special, educational, environmental, human, personal, financial, emotional, medical, nutritional, spiritual, public, developmental, organizational, legal, fundamental, audio-visual, psychological, corporate, societal, psychosocial, functional, additional, caloric, private, monetary, physiological, mental.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• in need

Etymology 2

From Middle English neden, from Old English n?odian.

Verb

need (third-person singular simple present needs, present participle needing, simple past and past participle needed)

1. (transitive) To have an absolute requirement for.
2. (transitive) To want strongly; to feel that one must have something.
3. (modal verb) To be obliged or required (to do something).

4. (intransitive) To be required; to be necessary.

   • When we have done it, we have done or duty, and all that is in our power, and indeed all that needs.
5. (obsolete, transitive) To be necessary (to someone).

Usage notes

• The verb need is construed in a few different ways:
  • With a direct object, as in “I need your help.”
  • With a to-infinitive, as in “I need to go.” Here, the subject of need serves implicitly as the subject of the infinitive.
  • With a clause of the form “for [object] to [verb phrase]”, or simply “[object] to [verb phrase]” as in “I need for this to happen” or “I need this to happen.” In both variants, the object serves as the subject of the infinitive.
  • As a modal verb, with a bare infinitive; in negative polarity contexts, such as questions (“Need I say more?” “Need you have paid so much?”), with negative expressions such as not (“It need not happen today”; “No one need ever know”), and with similar constructions (“There need only be one”; “it need be signed only by the president”; “I need hardly explain it”). Need in this use does not have inflected forms, aside from the contraction needn’t.
  • With a gerund-participle, as in “The car needs washing”, or (in certain dialects) with a past participle, as in “The car needs washed”^[1] (both meaning roughly “The car needs to be washed”).
  • With a direct object and a predicative complement, as in “We need everyone here on time” (meaning roughly “We need everyone to be here on time”) or “I need it gone” (meaning roughly “I need it to be gone”).
  • In certain dialects, and colloquially in certain others, with an unmarked reflexive pronoun, as in “I need me a car.”
• A sentence such as “I need you to sit down” or “you need to sit down” is politer than the bare command “sit down”, but less polite than “please sit down”. It is considered somewhat condescending and infantilizing, hence dubbed by some “the kindergarten imperative”, but is quite common in American usage.
• In older forms of English, when the pronoun thou was in active use, and verbs used -est for distinct second-person singular indicative forms, the verb need had the form needest, and had neededst for its past tense.
• Similarly, when the ending -eth was in active use for third-person singular present indicative forms, the form needeth was used.

Synonyms

• (desire): desire, wish for, would like, want, will (archaic)
• (lack): be without, lack
• (require): be in need of, require

Derived terms

• a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle
• citation needed
• needed, unneeded
• need-to-know basis

Translations

References

Further reading

• need at OneLook Dictionary Search
• need in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• need in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Dene, Dené, Eden, Ende, deen, dene, eden, ende

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian n?d, n?d, from Proto-Germanic *naudiz.

Noun

need c (plural neden)

1. need

Derived terms

• needgefal
• needsaak

Further reading

• “need”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011