have to
/ˈhæv.tuː/
have to verb: must; need to; to be urged to; to be required to; indicates obligation.
Verb
have to (third-person singular simple present has to, present participle having to, simple past and past participle had to)
- Must; need to; to be urged to; to be required to; indicates obligation.
- You have to wear a seat belt.
- I have to go to the bathroom.
- Synonyms:
- need to, have got to, got to, gotta
- Must; expresses a logical conclusion.
- that has to be the postman; it has to be an electrical fault
- Synonyms:
- be bound to, have got to, got to, gotta, must
have to meaning in Urdu, Tagalog, Arabic and Malay
have to in Urdu
- to have to, must
- ہونا honā
have to in Tagalog
- obligation
- kailangan
have to in Arabic
- obligation
- يَضْطَر yaḍṭar
have to in Malay
- obligation
- patut, perlu
More languagesFewer languages
- have to in Indonesian
- harus, pasti
- have to in Persian
- باید bâyad
- have to in Thai
- ต้อง dtɔ̂ng, จำเป็น jam bpen, จำเป็นต้อง jam bpen dtông
- have to in Vietnamese
- phải
- have to in Myanmar
- ရ ra.
Examples of have to in a sentence
- I just have to have that shirt.
- Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.
- She said you had not to talk to me, but you don't have to obey her anymore.
- But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company...
Synonyms of have to
- need to
- have got to
- got to
- gotta
- be bound to
- must
Forms of have to
| third-person singular present | has to |
|---|---|
| present participle | having to |
| past participle | had to |
| past | had to |
| alternative form (colloquial) | hafta |
Origin of have to
Dates back at least to the Old English habban + tō construction, with the same meaning as sense 1 below.
Questions about have to
- What does have to mean?
- Have to means must; need to; to be urged to; to be required to; indicates obligation.
- What is have to in Urdu?
- Have to in Urdu is ہونا (honā). See Have to meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use have to in a sentence?
- I just have to have that shirt.
- What part of speech is have to?
- Have to is a verb.
- How do you pronounce have to?
- Have to is pronounced /ˈhæv.tuː/.
- What is the past tense of have to?
- The past tense of have to is had to.
Words near have to in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: have to (page history and authors); ہونا (Urdu) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-have to.wav, en-us-have to.ogg.
Cite this entry: “have to.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/have_to. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.