Wednesday, May 23, 2012

need, knead

Need or need means a necessity, or to lack something necessary--
They need to have the roof fixed.
We'll have to save our money or we won't be able to afford what we need.
A telephone is now considered a need. It's hard to get a job without one.

Knead or knead ( rhymes with need ) means to work dough by squeezing, folding and pressing--
Knead the dough until it is of a uniform consistency.
The old woman wasn't able to knead the dough for pastry after her illness.

Now that you know that, you can say--
"You will need to knead the bread dough for 10 minutes, or it won't come out right."

Note--you may see the word "kneed", the past tense of "knee", used as a verb ( action word ), meaning to strike someone with the knee--
He kneed the attacker in the stomach and ran away.
Not to be confused with "kneel", meaning to get on one's knees, or its past tense, "knelt"--
They were supposed to kneel at that part of the service, but she forgot.
The preacher knelt down to pray.

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