Word.ws English Dictionary

done the needful

done the needful is the past participle 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 done the needful

What is done the needful the past participle of?
Done the needful is the past participle of do the needful.

Words near done the needful in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: done 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: “done the needful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/done_the_needful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.