Word.ws English Dictionary

doing the needful

doing the needful is the present participle and gerund of do the needful.

Meaning of do the needful

Verb

do the needful (third-person singular simple present does the needful, present participle doing the needful, simple past did the needful, past participle done the needful)

  1. (India, Nigeria, UK, dated, idiomatic) To do what is necessary or required.
    • My father had, generally speaking, his temper under complete self command, and his anger rarely indicated itself by words, except in a sort of dry testy manner to those who had displeased him. He never used threats or expressions of loud resentment. All was arranged with him on system and it was...1817, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 2, in Rob Roy, volume 1, Edinburgh: James Ballantyne and Co., published 1818, page 24

Questions about doing the needful

What is doing the needful the present participle and gerund of?
Doing the needful is the present participle and gerund of do the needful.

Words near doing the needful in the dictionary

  1. doing the impossible
  2. doing the job
  3. doing the math
  4. doing the nasties
  5. doing the nasty
  6. doing the needful
  7. doing the power of good
  8. doing the right thing
  9. doing the rounds
  10. doing the talking
  11. doing the trick

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doing the needful (page history and authors); do the needful (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “doing the needful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doing_the_needful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.