needn't

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need·n't

 (nēd′nt)
Contraction of need not.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

needn't

(ˈniːdənt)
contraction of
need not
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

need•n't

(ˈnid nt)
contraction of need not.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
Translations

needn't

[ˈniːdənt] = need notneed-to-know [ˌniːdtəˈnəʊ] adj
on a need-to-know basis
We operate on a need-to-know basis → Nous n'informons que les personnes directement concernées.
Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

need

(niːd) negative short form needn't (ˈniːdnt) verb
1. to require. This page needs to be checked again; This page needs checking again; Do you need any help?
2. to be obliged. You need to work hard if you want to succeed; They don't need to come until six o'clock; She needn't have given me such an expensive present.
noun
1. something essential, that one must have. Food is one of our basic needs.
2. poverty or other difficulty. Many people are in great need.
3. a reason. There is no need for panic.
ˈneedless adjective, adverb
unnecessary. You are doing a lot of needless work; Needless to say, he couldn't do it.
ˈneedlessly adverb
ˈneedy adjective
poor. You must help needy people.
a need for
a lack of; a requirement for. There is an urgent need for teachers in this city.
in need of
requiring; having a lack of. We're in need of more money; You're badly in need of a haircut.
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary © 2006-2013 K Dictionaries Ltd.
Mentioned in
References in classic literature
He needn't have repeated it; once was enough; Huck was making thirty or forty miles an hour before the repetition was uttered.
Pullet's departure, informing her that she needn't trouble her mind about her five hundred pounds, for it should be paid back to her in the course of the next month at farthest, together with the interest due thereon until the time of payment.
"Well, you needn't get so all-fired het up about it.
Needn't say I had no thoughts left for pretty women.
Now sir, on this account (and perhaps for another reason or two which I needn't go into) I am on your side.
If you go into the first room, you will see a great chest in the middle of the floor with a dog sitting upon it; he has eyes as large as saucers, but you needn't trouble about him.
"I needn't have been in such a hurry to pray about today, or have kept awake thinking everything over all night," thought he to himself.
Even if a man is rejoicing in his heart over his wife being dead, he needn't proclaim it to the four winds of heaven.
'Oh, it needn't come to that!' Alice hastily said, hoping to keep him from beginning.
"You needn't be so rude, it's only a `lapse of lingy', as Mr.
"If you would only live with me in some little house when we get older," mused Emma Jane, as with her darning needle poised in air she regarded the opposite wall dreamily, "I would do the housework and cooking, and copy all your poems and stories, and take them to the post-office, and you needn't do anything but write.
She had cried out, when I carried up her dinner, that she couldn't bear any longer being in the cold; and I told her the master was going to Thrushcross Grange, and Earnshaw and I needn't hinder her from descending; so, as soon as she heard Heathcliff's horse trot off, she made her appearance, donned in black, and her yellow curls combed back behind her ears as plain as a Quaker: she couldn't comb them out.
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