want

Meanings

Verb

• To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave or demand.
• To wish, desire or demand to see, have the presence of or do business with.
• To desire (to experience desire); to wish.
• To lack and be in need of or require (something, such as a noun or verbal noun).
• To have occasion for (something requisite or useful); to require or need.
• To be lacking or deficient or absent.
• To be in a state of destitution; to be needy; to lack.
• To lack and be without, to not have (something).
• To lack and (be able to) do without.

Noun

• A desire, wish, longing.
• Lack, absence, deficiency.
• 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.
• A mole (Talpa europea (species)).

Related

Similar words

• set one's heart on, wish for, would like
• lack, be without
• need, be in need of

Origin

• From Middle English wanten ("to lack"), from Old Norse vanta ("to lack"), from Proto-Germanic *wanatōną ("to be wanting, lack"), from *wanô, 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-.
• From Middle English wont, from Old English wand, wond, from Proto-Germanic *wanduz.