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want

verb
/wɒnt/UK/wɑnt/US/wɔːnt/CA/wɔnt/

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-.

  1. derived from *h₁weh₂-✻
  2. derived from *wanatōną✻
  3. derived from vanta
  4. inherited from wanten

Definitions

  1. To wish for or desire (something)

    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.

  2. 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.
    • But now it's different, if the police want him for murder.

  3. To desire (to experience desire)

    To desire (to experience desire); to wish.

    • You can leave if you want.
    • TYRION: You don't want it? BRAN: I don't really want anymore.
  4. ›+ 15 more definitions

    1. To be advised to do something (compare should, ought).

      • You’ll want to repeat this three or four times to get the best result.

    2. To lack and be in need of or require (something, such as a noun or verbal noun).

      • 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.

    3. To have occasion for (something requisite or useful)

      To have occasion for (something requisite or useful); to require or need.

      • 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.

    4. To be lacking or deficient or absent.

      • 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.

    5. To be in a state of destitution

      To be in a state of destitution; to be needy; to lack.

      • You have a gift, sir (thank your education), / Will never let you want.
      • The paupers desperately want.

    6. To lack and be without, to not have (something).

      • 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.

    7. To lack and perhaps be able or willing to do without.

      • 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, ...

    8. To desire a romantic or (especially) sexual relationship with someone

      To desire a romantic or (especially) sexual relationship with someone; to lust for.

      • 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...

    9. A desire, wish, longing.

      • 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.

    10. Lack, absence, deficiency.

      • 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.

    11. Poverty.

      • Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want.

    12. Something needed or desired

      Something needed or desired; a thing of which the loss is felt.

      • Habitual superfluities become actual wants.

    13. A depression in coal strata, hollowed out before the subsequent deposition took place.

    14. A mole (Talpa europea).

      • Lic. She hath the ears of a want. / Pec. Doth she want ears?

    15. A personification of want.

The neighborhood

Derived

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 · +8 more

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at want. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01want02business03industrial04manufacturing05products06product07desired08desire

A definitional loop anchored at want. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at want

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA