needs
- 01 C2 Proficiency
used with the word 'must' to show that something has to happen.
an adverb of necessity, almost exclusively appearing in the construction 'must needs' to indicate an unavoidable requirement.
Simple“If he will not listen to reason, then he must needs learn the hard way.”
In context“The king decreed that if the treasury were empty, the people must needs face higher taxes to fund the coming war.”
UsageAlmost always follows the auxiliary verb 'must'.
Teacher's tipThis is rarely used in modern speech; students will mostly encounter it in Shakespeare or older literature.
Synonymsnecessarilyunavoidably
Usage needs to get · needs of people
From Middle English nedes (“of necessity, necessarily; inevitably, unavoidably”) [and other forms], from Old English nēdes, nīedes (“of necessity; not willingly”), from nīed + -es (suffix forming adverbs from nouns). The English word is equivalent to need + -'s (possessive marker) and hence to need + -s (suffix forming adverbs).
From need + -s.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.