An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Not

by Friedrich Kluge

Not, feminine, ‘need, compulsion, distress,’ from Middle High German and Old High German nôt, feminine (seldom masculine), ‘toil, oppression, danger, struggle, compulsion’; a common Teutonic form; compare Gothic nauþs, feminine, ‘necessity, compulsion, force,’ Old Icelandic nauðr, feminine, ‘necessity,’ Anglo-Saxon nŷd, neád, feminine, English need, Dutch nood, Old Saxon nôd. The common Teutonic stems naudi, nauþi, from pre-Teutonic nauti-, have been connected with Prussian nauti-, ‘distress’; nau- (see genau) is probably the root. —