Can you please tell me what is the difference between Need and Require?


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Need is similar to want in often assigning a sense of emotional stress, e.g. I need my daughter to come home and look after me, while required has a colder, more unemotional sense, e.g. I require three nurses, working in shifts to look after me. Need often relates to the Principal’s physical and emotional state, and complement clause subject is most often the same as main clause subject, e.g. I need to be love – compared with I required to be loved, which sounds most odd.

Require only has complement clause subject coinciding with main clause subject, and is often used to specify the necessities of social interaction and employment obligations, e.g. We require all our executives to join the superannuation fund or the notice in a doctor’s surgery. We require payment at time of consultation. Both semantically and syntactically, require shows similarities to the Making Type and to the Order Subtype of Speaking, e.g. The Sultan required / ordered / forced John to wash his feet.

Note: Need can modify require, but not vice versa, e.g. Do you require the chancellor to call on you, sire? No, I don’t need to require him to call, for the simple reason that he is already here.

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