imperative vs needful

imperative

adj
  • Essential; crucial; extremely important. 

  • Having semantics that incorporates mutable variables. 

  • Expressing a command; authoritatively or absolutely directive. 

  • Of, or relating to the imperative mood. 

noun
  • A verb in imperative mood. 

  • The grammatical mood expressing an order (see jussive). In English, the imperative form of a verb is the same as that of the bare infinitive. 

  • An essential action, a must: something which is imperative. 

needful

adj
  • Needed; necessary; mandatory; requisite; indispensable. 

noun
  • Ready money; wherewithal. 

How often have the words imperative and needful occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )