Need-to-know

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Something that one needs to know; a piece of necessary information.
Adjective
  1. 1
    (of information) given to another only when necessary. idiomatic, not-comparable

    "10 to 2 a.m., X, Yogi DMT and a box of Krispy Kremes In my need-to-know post just outside of Area 51 Contemplating the whole "Chosen People" thingy When just a flaming stealth banana split the sky Like one would hope, but never really expect to see in a place like this"

Example

More examples

"Information will be provided on a need-to-know basis."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.