want
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: business
mining
Etymology: From Middle English wanten (“to lack, to need”), from Old Norse vanta (“to lack”), from Proto-Germanic *wanatōną (“to be wanting, lack”), from *wanô (“lack, deficiency”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- (“empty”). Cognate with Middle High German wan (“not full, empty”), Middle Dutch wan (“empty, poor”), Old English wana (“want, lack, absence, deficiency”), Latin vanus (“empty”). See wan, wan-.
Inflected forms:
form: wants
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: wanting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: wanted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: wanted
pos: verb
tags: past
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: want
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: want
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: wanted
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: want
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: wantest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
second-person
singular
form: wanted
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: wantedst
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: wants
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: wanteth
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
singular
third-person
form: wanted
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: want
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: wanted
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: want
pos: verb
tags: present
subjunctive
form: wanted
pos: verb
tags: past
subjunctive
form: want
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: wanting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: wanted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: waunt
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: wants
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: waunt
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: I want you as a friend, not a foe.
What do you want to eat?  I want you to leave.  I never wanted to go back to live with my mother.
And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them. Soft heartedness caused more harm than good.
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. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.
I want to find a supermarket. — Oh, okay. The supermarket is at 1500 Irving Street. It is near the apartment. — Great!
gloss: To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand.
pos: verb
tags: broadly
transitive
examples: The game developers of Candy Crush want you to waste large, copious amounts of your money on in-game purchases to buy boosters and lives.
Depression wants you to feel like the world is dark and that you are not worthy of happiness. The first step to making your life better from this day forward is to stop believing these lies.
gloss: To wish, desire, or demand to see, have the presence of or do business with.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Ma’am, you are exactly the professional we want for this job.
Danish police want him for embezzlement.
But now it's different, if the police want him for murder.
gloss: To desire (to experience desire); to wish.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: You can leave if you want.
TYRION: You don't want it?
BRAN: I don't really want anymore.
gloss: To be advised to do something (compare should, ought).
pos: verb
tags: colloquial
second-person
usually
examples: You’ll want to repeat this three or four times to get the best result.
gloss: To lack and be in need of or require (something, such as a noun or verbal noun).
pos: verb
tags: colloquial
transitive
examples: The lady, it is said, will inherit a fortune of three hundred pounds a year, with two cool thousands left by an uncle, on her arriving at the age of twenty-one, of which she wants but a few months.
Oh Jeanie, it will be hard, after every thing is ready for our happiness, if we should be sundered. It wants but a few days o' Martinmas, and then I maun enter on my new service on Loch Rannoch, where a bonny shieling is ready ...
In this we have just read an address to children in England, Ireland, and Scotland, in behalf of children who want food to keep them from starvation.
“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.
The mowing-machine always wanted oiling. Barnet turned it under Jacob's window, and it creaked—creaked, and rattled across the lawn and creaked again.
That chair wants fixing and a clean.
What you really want is a good smack!
gloss: To have occasion for (something requisite or useful); to require or need.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
transitive
examples: Man wants but little, nor that little long.
Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.
[F]or my greatest skill has been to want but little.
gloss: To be lacking or deficient or absent.
pos: verb
tags: dated
intransitive
examples: There was something wanting in the play.
They of the Citie fought valiantly with Engines, Darts, Arrows: and when Stones wanted, they threw Silver, especially molten silver.
The disposition, the manners, and the thoughts are all before it; where any of those are wanting or imperfect, so much wants or is imperfect in the imitation of human life.
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find / What wants in blood and spirits, swelled with wind.
gloss: To be in a state of destitution; to be needy; to lack.
pos: verb
tags: dated
intransitive
examples: You have a gift, sir (thank your education), / Will never let you want.
The paupers desperately want.
gloss: To lack and be without, to not have (something).
pos: verb
tags: archaic
transitive
examples: he that hath skill to be a pilot wants a ship; and he that could govern a commonwealth[…]wants means to exercise his worth, hath not a poor office to manage.
I observed […] that your whip wanted a lash to it.
The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to Dotage, and entirely lose their Memories; these meet with more Pity and Assistance, because they want many bad Qualities which abound in others.
Not what we wish, but what we want, / Oh, let thy grace supply!
Pray Mr Marvell, can it be / You think to have persuaded me? / Then let me say: you want the art / To woo, much less to win my heart.
She wanted anything she needed.
gloss: To lack and perhaps be able or willing to do without.
pos: verb
tags: broadly
obsolete
transitive
examples: […] which the Kings of Assyria had left for the maintenance of this Temple sacrifices, after the ouerthrow thereof, was shared among the Chaldzans; which they by this attempt were like to lose, and therefore were willing to want his presence.
1789 Robert Burns: Epigram On Francis Grose The Antiquary
The Devil got notice that Grose was a-dying
So whip! at the summons, old Satan came flying;
But when he approached where poor Francis lay moaning,
And saw each bed-post with its burthen a-groaning,
Astonish'd, confounded, cries Satan-"By God,
I'll want him, ere I take such a damnable load!"
For Law, Physick and Divinitie, need so the help of tongs and sciences, as thei can not want them, and yet thei require so a hole mans studie, as thei may parte with no tyme to other lerning, ...
1880 Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped
"Are ye sharp-set?" he asked, glancing at about the level of my knee. "Ye can eat that drop parritch."
I said I feared it was his own supper.
"Oh," said he, "I can do fine wanting it, I'll take the ale, though, for it slockens my cough." He drank the cup about half out, still keeping an eye upon me as he drank...
gloss: To desire a romantic or (especially) sexual relationship with someone; to lust for.
pos: verb
examples: Dang, girl! Your brother is gorgeous! I want him so bad!
Don't, don't you want me? / You know I can't believe it when I hear that you won't see me / Don't, don't you want me? / You know I don't believe you when you say that you don't need me
Yeah, you're loo- (loo-loo-) lookin' at me like I'm some sweet escape / Obvious that you want me, but I said...
gloss: A desire, wish, longing.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: After a search which produced most of the things on our wants list, we went down to picnic on the shore in the sunshine-with a good stretch of shingle behind us over which no triffid could approach unheard.
gloss: Lack, absence, deficiency.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: She showed a want of caution in renting her house to complete strangers.
[H]eavens and honour be witness, that no want of resolution in me, but only my followers' base and ignominious treasons, makes me betake me to my heels.
They are wet with the showres of the mountaines, and imbrace the rocke for want of a shelter.
gloss: Poverty.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want.
gloss: Something needed or desired; a thing of which the loss is felt.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Habitual superfluities become actual wants.
gloss: A depression in coal strata, hollowed out before the subsequent deposition took place.
pos: noun
tags: UK
countable
uncountable
Synonyms: set one's heart on
wish for
would like
ache
appetize
aspire
covet
crave
desire
dream
eye
fancy
fond
heart
hope
hunger
jones
like
thirst
wish
Antonyms: dislike
hate
unwant
Derived words: all one wants
do not want
do want
I don't want it
I don't want to buy anything
I don't want to talk about it
I want doesn't get
I want my money back
I want to go to the toilet
I want to know
I want to speak to the manager haircut
not want to do that
pay what you want
Polly want a cracker
unwanted
wanna
want-away
wanted
wanter
want for
want for nothing
want in
wanting
want list
want no part of
want one's bumps feeling
want one's bumps felt
want out
want someone's nachos
want-to
want to
want-to-be
want to bet
want to know
waste not, want not
what do you want
who wants to know?
you don't want to know
you want a cookie
you want a piece of me
for want of
want ad
wantful
wantish
wantless
want must be one's master
wantsome
wanty
Translations: