different between need vs scantiness
need
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)
- (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.
- 1650, Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living
- 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)
- (transitive) To have an absolute requirement for.
- (transitive) To want strongly; to feel that one must have something.
- (modal verb) To be obliged or required (to do something).
- (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.
- (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)
- need
Derived terms
- needgefal
- needsaak
Further reading
- “need”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011
need From the web:
- what needs a host to survive
- what needs to be done when someone dies
- what needs to be capitalized
- what needs 60 votes in the senate
- what needs to be on a resume
- what needle to use for embroidery
- what needs to be in a cover letter
- what needs to be capitalized in a title
scantiness
English
Etymology
From scanty +? -ness
Noun
scantiness (countable and uncountable, plural scantinesses)
- (uncountable) The quality of being scanty.
- (countable) The result or product of being scanty.
Synonyms
- (quality of being scanty): See Thesaurus:fewness
- (product of being scanty): dearth, meagerness, scarcity; see also Thesaurus:lack
Translations
References
- scantiness in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
- scantiness in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
scantiness From the web:
- what does scantiness meaning
- what does scantiness
- what does scantiness mean in english
- what is meant by scantiness
- what is scantiness in literature
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