want.
To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand.
Meaning & usage
To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand.
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.
To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand. To make it easy or tempting to do something undesirable, or to make it hard or challenging to refrain from doing it.
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.
To wish, desire, or demand to see, have the presence of or do business with.
Ma’am, you are exactly the professional we want for this job.
Danish police want him for embezzlement.
To desire (to experience desire); to wish.
You can leave if you want.
To be advised to do or aim for something (compare should, ought).
You’ll want to repeat this three or four times to get the best result.
To lack and be in need of or require (something, such as a noun or verbal noun).
That chair wants fixing and a clean.
What you really want is a good smack!
To have occasion for (something requisite or useful); to require or need.
To be lacking or deficient or absent.
There was something wanting in the play.
To be in a state of destitution; to be needy; to lack.
The paupers desperately want.
To lack and be without, to not have (something).
She wanted anything she needed.
To lack and perhaps be able or willing to do without.
To desire a romantic or (especially) sexual relationship with someone; to lust for.
Dang, girl! Your brother is gorgeous! I want him so bad!
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *wanatōną Old Norse vantabor. Middle English wanten English want 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-.
A desire, wish, longing.
Lack, absence, deficiency.
She showed a want of caution in renting her house to complete strangers.
Poverty.
Something needed or desired; a thing of which the loss is felt.
A depression in coal strata, hollowed out before the subsequent deposition took place.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *wanatōną Old Norse vantabor. Middle English wanten English want 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-.
A mole (Talpa europea).
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Old English wand Middle English wont English want From Middle English wont (“mole”), from Old English wand, wond, from Proto-Germanic *wanduz.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.