have to - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Dates back at least to the Old English habban + tō construction, with the same meaning as sense 1 below.

have to (third-person singular simple present has to, present participle having to, simple past and past participle had to)

  1. Must; need to; to be urged to; to be required to; indicates obligation.
    Synonyms: need to, have got to, got to, gotta
    You have to wear a seat belt.
    I have to go to the bathroom.
    I just have to have that shirt.
    Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.
    She said you had not to talk to me, but you don't have to obey her anymore.
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
      I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.
    • 1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 9:
      A nasty, empty feeling began to crawl up inside me. It was the same sensation I used to have sometimes as a child when I got to fancying that horrors were lurking in the shadowy corners of the bedroom; when I daren't put a foot out for fear that something should reach from under the bed and grab my ankle; daren't even reach for the switch lest the movement should cause something to leap at me. I had to fight down the feeling, just as I had had to when I was a kid in the dark.
    • 1951 September, “Notes and News: New Station for Glasgow Zoo”, in Railway Magazine, page 639:
      Before the new station could be built, a private overbridge had to be raised, and the railway regraded.
    • 2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:
      Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame.
    • 2023 December 27, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: the way to Weymouth”, in RAIL, number 999, page 55:
      The railway ran through the resort's narrow streets up to Weymouth Quay station, with thoughtlessly parked vehicles sometimes having to be bumped out of the way.
  2. (with be) Must; expresses a logical conclusion.
    Synonyms: be bound to, have got to, got to, gotta, must
    that has to be the postman; it has to be an electrical fault

I don't want to go to school, but I have to.

obligation

conclusion

Translations to be checked