需

需 expresses necessity and expectation, originally meaning “to wait for something (like rain)”, and later extending to “to need or demand.”

It captures both temporal waiting and material or emotional need, uniting the ideas of patience, dependence, and provision.

Ideogrammatic compound composed of:

雨 (비 우) — meaning “rain,” symbolizing what falls from heaven and sustains life.

天 (하늘 천) (later replaced by 而) — symbolizing the sky above or what one looks toward in expectation.

Originally, it depicted “a person under the sky waiting for rain,” expressing “to await the end of rain” or “to wait for rain to fall.”

From this core image, the meaning evolved into “to wait,” “to expect,” and ultimately “to require or need.”

In Bronze inscriptions (金文 jinwen), 需 was written as 雨 + 天 — a direct visual of heavenly rain awaited by humanity.

In Small Seal Script (小篆), 天 was replaced by 而 for stylistic reasons, giving the modern form.

需要 (수요) — demand; need

需求 (수구) — requirement; necessity

必需 (필수) — indispensable; essential

供需 (공수) — supply and demand

需用 (수용) — necessary use

需時 (수시) — time required; time needed

需品 (수품) — necessary goods

婚需 (혼수) — wedding necessities (dowry items)

祭需 (제수) — offerings for ancestral rites

需給 (수급) — supply and distribution

In ancient agrarian societies, waiting for rain was the most fundamental form of expectation and dependence.

Rain was life — the difference between famine and abundance — and so 需 came to embody both patience and necessity.

「民需於天，天施於時。」

“The people depend on Heaven, and Heaven bestows in its own time” — Book of Rites (禮記).

Over time, this idea expanded: from waiting for rain to waiting for any essential thing — food, help, justice, or opportunity.

In governance and economics, 需 came to denote demand, balancing 供 (to supply) in the concept of 供需平衡 (balance of supply and demand).

In modern Chinese and Korean usage, 需 continues this sense in both literal and abstract ways — from 혼수 (婚需), “marriage necessities,” to 수요 (需要), “public demand.”

需 symbolizes patient dependence upon the natural or cosmic order.

It teaches that all things have their time — what is needed will arrive when conditions ripen.

The rain radical (雨) represents divine provision, while the sky element (天 / 而) conveys faith in a higher timing.

「需者，待也；待時而動，順天之道。」

“To need is to wait; to act when the time is right is the Way of Heaven.”

Thus, 需 embodies both necessity and patience — the understanding that need is not weakness, but an acknowledgment of interdependence with the world.

需 teaches humble reliance and wise timing.

To recognize one’s needs is not to admit lack, but to live in harmony with the cycles of giving and receiving.

「需以時成，急則失其道。」

“What is needed comes in its season; haste only loses the Way.”

Therefore, 需 stands as a character of necessity, patience, and natural order — a reminder that true fulfillment comes not by force, but by waiting with faith for the right time and measure of Heaven’s rain.