Word.ws English Dictionary

in need

in need prepositional phrase: lacking basic necessities such as food and shelter; poor; indigent.

Prepositional phrase

  1. Lacking basic necessities such as food and shelter; poor; indigent.
    • I donated the clothes my son outgrew to help children in need.
  2. In distress or otherwise difficult circumstances.
    • a friend in need is a friend indeed
    • The team came to the rescue of a whale in need.
  3. (when followed by “of”) Needing (the specified necessities).
    • The house stands in need of urgent repairs.

in need meaning in Bengali, Malayalam, Sanskrit and Arabic

in need in Bengali

lacking basic necessities such as food and shelter; poor; indigent
মুহতাজ muhotaj, মিসকিন miśokin, আল্হাদে alhade

in need in Malayalam

necessitous, needy, deprived
ആവശ്യക്കാരനായ, ഇല്ലാത്തവനായ, അഗതിയായ, ദരിദ്രനായ, മുട്ടുള്ള, ദരിദ്രം

in need in Sanskrit

lacking basic necessities such as food and shelter; poor; indigent
ध्रिगु dhrigu

in need in Arabic

lacking basic necessities such as food and shelter; poor; indigent
مِسْكِين miskīn
More languagesFewer languages
in need in Persian
نیازمند niâzmand, فقیر faqir

Questions about in need

What does in need mean?
In need means lacking basic necessities such as food and shelter; poor; indigent.
What is in need in Bengali?
In need in Bengali is মুহতাজ (muhotaj), মিসকিন (miśokin), আল্হাদে (alhade). See In need meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is in need?
In need is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in need in the dictionary

  1. in my humble opinion
  2. in my opinion
  3. in name
  4. in nappies
  5. in neat
  6. in need
  7. in no small measure
  8. in no small part
  9. in no time
  10. in no uncertain terms
  11. in no way

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in need (page history and authors); in need (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-in need.wav.

Cite this entry: “in need.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/in_need. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.