Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adverb Of necessity; necessarily.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of necessity; necessarily; unavoidably: generally used with must.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; -- often with must, and equivalent to of need.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; often with must, and equivalent to "of need".
  • noun Plural form of need.
  • verb Third-person singular simple present indicative form of need.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb in such a manner as could not be otherwise

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English nedes, from nede, from Old English nēde, genitive of nēd, necessity; see need.]

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