need like a hole in the head

not to need something at all. I need a house cat like I need a hole in the head! She needs another car like she needs a hole in the head.

if you say you need something like a hole in the head, you mean you do not need it and do not want it We need a new shopping centre in our neighbourhood like we need a hole in the head!

Have neither a need nor a desire for something, as in I needed that extra work like I need a hole in the head. This expression has such ancestors as "As much need of it as he has of the pip [a disease] or of a cough," from John Ray's English Proverbs (1678), and "As much need of it as a toad of a side pocket," from Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785). [Slang; c. 1940]