| Main Entry: | |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | emergency; pressing lack |
| Synonyms: | deficiency, exigency, inadequacy, insufficiency, necessity, obligation, shortage, urgency, want |
| Notes: | knead means to make into a uniform mass, as by folding, pressing, and stretching with the hands or manually manipulate someone's body usually for medicinal or relaxation purposes; a need (noun) is something required or wanted - need (verb) means to require or have a need of |
| Antonyms: | comfort, fortune, have, plenty |
| Main Entry: | pass |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | predicament |
| Synonyms: | condition, contingency, crisis, crossroads, emergency, exigency, juncture, pinch, plight, situation, stage, state, strait, turning point*, zero hour |
| Main Entry: | pinch |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | predicament |
| Synonyms: | box*, clutch, contingency, crisis, crunch, difficulty, emergency, exigency, hardship, juncture, necessity, oppression, pass, plight, pressure, strait, stress, tight spot, tight squeeze, turning point*, zero hour |
| Antonyms: | advantage, blessing, good fortune |
| Main Entry: | predicament |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | difficult situation |
| Synonyms: | Catch-22, asperity, bad news, bind*, circumstance, clutch, condition, corner*, crisis, deadlock, deep water, dilemma, drag*, emergency, exigency, fix*, hang-up, hardship, hole, hot water, imbroglio, impasse, jam*, juncture, large order, lot, mess*, muddle, pass, perplexity, pickle, pinch, plight, position, posture, puzzle, quagmire, quandary, rigor, rough go, scrape*, soup, spot*, state*, strait, tall order ticklish spot tight situation trouble, vicissitude |
| Antonyms: | fix, good fortune, solution |
| Main Entry: | pressure |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | demand, difficulty |
| Synonyms: | adversity, affliction, albatross, burden, choke, clout, coercion, compulsion, confinement, constraint, crunch, discipline, distress, drag, duress, exigency, force, full court press, hardship, hassle, heat, hurry, influence, inside track, load, misfortune, necessity, obligation, persuasion, power, press, pressure cooker, pull, requirement, strain, stress, sway, tension, trouble, unnaturalness, urgency, weight |
| Antonyms: | ease, facility, peace |
| Main Entry: | requirement/requisite |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | necessity, want |
| Synonyms: | claim, compulsion, concern, condition, demand, desideratum, element, engrossment, essential, exaction, exigency, extremity, fulfillment, fundamental, imperative, lack, must, need, obligation, obsession, pinch, precondition, preliminary, preoccupation, prepossession, prerequisite, prescription, provision, proviso, qualification, sine qua non, specification, stipulation, terms, urgency, vital part |
| Antonyms: | desire, option, wish |
| Main Entry: | strait |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | crisis, difficulty |
| Synonyms: | bewilderment, bind, bottleneck, choke point, contingency, crossroad, dilemma, distress, embarrassment, emergency, exigency, extremity, hardship, hole*, mess*, mystification, pass, perplexity, pinch*, plight, predicament, rigor, squeeze*, turning point*, vicissitude, zero hour |
| Antonyms: | advantage, solution, success |
| Main Entry: | turning point |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | critical juncture |
| Synonyms: | axis, change, climacteric, climax, contingency, crisis, critical mass, critical moment, critical period, critical point, crossing, crossroads, crucial moment, crucial occurrence, crucial period, crunch, crux, culmination, cusp, decisive moment, defining moment, development, emergency, exigency, high noon, hinge, juncture, kairotic moment, moment of truth, moment of truth, nexus, pass, peak, peripeteia, pinch, pivot, pivotal moment, point of no return, race against time, rising action, shift, strait, transition, turn of the tide, twist, when push comes to shove, zero hour, zero hour |
| Main Entry: | want |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | lack, need |
| Synonyms: | absence, dearth, default, defect, deficiency, destitution, exigency, exiguousness, famine, impecuniousness, impoverishment, inadequacy, indigence, insufficiency, meagerness, neediness, paucity, pauperism, penury, poorness, poverty, privation, scantiness, scarcity, shortage, skimpiness |
| Notes: | wont is a custom, especially habitual; want is a desire or need |
| Antonyms: | abundance, plenty |