need not meaning: definition, quotations

need not

verbalso spelled need-not

UK, No past participle, No present participle Indicating absence of necessity; needn't, do(es) not have to, do(es) not need to.

My example illustrates how circularity can arise in arguments that appeal to experiment. But the very same example serves to show that this need not be the case.2013, Alan Chalmers, What is this thing called Science?, University of Queensland Press, page 36:

Dated, No past participle, No present participle Indicating inadvisability; ought not to.

Want ads for what little manual labor there was frequently had the stipulation INNA, an acronym for Italians and Irish Need Not Apply.2018 June 1, Gerard Letterie, “Education is the beacon that lights our path forward in America”, in The Seattle Times:

noun

Obsolete Something that is not needed or is excessive.

Such abundance must be laid out on superfluous recreations, buildings, ornaments, furniture, equipage, attendants, entertainments, visitations, braveries, and a world of need-nots […]1673, Baxter's Practical Works, Vol. I:
They implanted desires for need-nots and luxuries, and unscrupulously inflamed them.2013, Alvin Jackson, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History: