Word.ws English Dictionary

need-to-know

need-to-know adjective: (of information) given to another only when necessary.

Adjective

need-to-know (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic) (of information) given to another only when necessary.
    • 10 to 2 a.m., X, Yogi DMT and a box of Krispy Kremes
      In my need-to-know post just outside of Area 51
      Contemplating the whole "Chosen People" thingy
      When just a flaming stealth banana split the sky
      Like one would hope, but never really expect to see in a place like this2006, “Rosetta Stoned”, performed by Tool

Noun

need-to-know (plural need-to-knows)

  1. Something that one needs to know; a piece of necessary information.

Forms of need-to-know

pluralneed-to-knows

Questions about need-to-know

What does need-to-know mean?
Need-to-know means (of information) given to another only when necessary.
What part of speech is need-to-know?
Need-to-know can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near need-to-know in the dictionary

  1. need-blind
  2. need-fire
  3. need-fires
  4. need-not
  5. need-nots
  6. need-to-know
  7. need-to-knows
  8. needa
  9. needable
  10. needcessities
  11. needcessity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: need-to-know (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: En-au-need-to-know.ogg.

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