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Necessity vs Needs - What's the difference?

necessity | needs |

As nouns the difference between necessity and needs

is that necessity is (quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite) The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite while needs is plural of lang=en.

As an adverb needs is

of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; often with must, and equivalent to "of need".

As a verb needs is

third-person singular of need.

necessity

Noun

(necessities)
  • The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)
  • , volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […].  Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. […]  But the scandals kept coming, […]. A broad section of the political class now recognises the need for change but remains unable to see the necessity of a fundamental overhaul.}}
  • The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want.
  • That which is necessary; a requisite; something indispensable.
  • *
  • Love and compassion are necessities , not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
  • That which makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality.
  • * 1804 , Wordsworth,
  • I stopped, and said with inly muttered voice,
    'It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:
    This neither is its courage nor its choice,
    But its necessity in being old.
  • The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism.
  • (legal) Greater utilitarian good; used in justification of a criminal act .
  • (legal, in the plural) Indispensable requirements (of life).
  • Synonyms

    * (state of being necessary) inevitability, certainty

    Antonyms

    * (state of being necessary) impossibility, contingency * (something indispensable) luxury

    Derived terms

    * make a virtue of necessity

    Anagrams

    *

    needs

    English

    Adverb

    (-)
  • Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; often with must , and equivalent to "of need".
  • * We needs must jangle, till at last / We fought and I was beat.
  • * , (A Shropshire Lad), XXV, line 3-4
  • Noun

    (head)
  • Verb

    (head)
  • (need)
  • Anagrams

    * *