Past tense of need
regular verb
The past tense of need is needed. The past participle is also needed.
Forms of need
| Base form (V1) | need /niːd/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | needed /ˈniː.dɪd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | needed /ˈniː.dɪd/ |
| Present participle | needing |
| Third person singular | needs /niːdz/ |
Needed in a sentence
- She needed convincing that I was what she really needed.
- Scotland needed a victory by eight points to have a realistic chance of progressing to the knock-out stages, and for long periods of a ferocious contest looked as if they might pull it off.2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in BBC Sport
- The staff were very accommodating and made sure we had everything we needed.From the entry accommodating
- He needed to replace the card his computer used to connect to the internet.From the entry card
- He needed a lot of power to hit the ball out of the stadium.From the entry power
Meaning of need
- noun A requirement for something; something needed.
- noun A desire or craving for the satisfaction of a requirement perceived as essential or primal.
- noun Lack of means of subsistence; poverty; indigence; destitution.
Questions about the past tense of need
- What is the past tense of need?
- The past tense of need is needed.
- What is the past participle of need?
- The past participle of need is needed.
- Is need a regular or irregular verb?
- Need is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: need (page history and authors) and the entries of its forms. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws left out forms marked obsolete, archaic, rare or dialectal and added the examples. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “Past tense of need.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/need. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.