verb, transitive

To have need of; require: The family needs money.

verb, intransitive

[Middle English nede, from Old English nēod, nēd, distress, necessity.]

Usage Note: Depending on the sense, the verb need behaves sometimes like an auxiliary verb (such as can or may) and sometimes like a main verb (such as want or try). When used as a main verb, need agrees with its subject, takes to before the verb following it, and combines with do in questions, negations, and certain other constructions: He needs to go. Does he need to go so soon? He doesn't need to go. When used as an auxiliary verb, need does not agree with its subject, does not take to before the verb following it, and does not combine with do: He needn't go. Need he go so soon? The auxiliary forms of need are used primarily in present-tense questions, negations, and conditional clauses. They differ subtly in meaning from the main verb forms in that they always refer to an externally imposed obligation. Hence one might say You needn't (or less formally, don't need to) fill out both forms, but where the sense of necessity is internal to the subject, only the main verb can be used: I don't need to (not needn't) be told how to manage my own affairs. Note also that the use of need as an auxiliary is often accompanied by a presupposition that the activity in question has in fact been performed. The boys needn't have spoken frankly implies that they did in fact speak frankly, whereas the sentence The boys did not need to speak frankly does not; only the latter could be followed by a clause like they conveyed their meanings by indirection.