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want

Pronunciation: /wɒnt/

The English word “want” has 18 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand.
  2. To make it easy or tempting to do something undesirable, or to make it hard or challenging to refrain from doing it.
  3. To wish, desire, or demand to see, have the presence of or do business with.
  4. To desire (to experience desire); to wish.
  5. To be advised to do or aim for something (compare should, ought).
  6. To lack and be in need of or require (something, such as a noun or verbal noun).
  7. To have occasion for (something requisite or useful); to require or need.
  8. To be lacking or deficient or absent.
  9. To be in a state of destitution; to be needy; to lack.
  10. To lack and be without, to not have (something).
  11. To lack and perhaps be able or willing to do without.
  12. To desire a romantic or (especially) sexual relationship with someone; to lust for.

noun

  1. A desire, wish, longing.
  2. Lack, absence, deficiency.
  3. Poverty.
  4. Something needed or desired; a thing of which the loss is felt.
  5. A depression in coal strata, hollowed out before the subsequent deposition took place.
  6. A mole (Talpa europea).

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-.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.