want
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To feel that you would like to have or do something.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
wahntIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwɑnt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
transitive
To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand.
intransitive
To desire (to experience desire); to wish.
Wish or demand the presence of
To desire a romantic or (especially) sexual relationship with someone; to lust for.
Be without, lack; be deficient in
transitivenow colloquial
To lack and be in need of or require (something, such as a noun or verbal noun).
noun
countable
A desire, wish, longing.
countable
Lack, absence, deficiency. [(often) with of]
Something needed or desired; a thing of which the loss is felt.
A state of extreme poverty
A personification of want.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand.
Used this way, want is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use want
- “I want to go home now.”verb
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Desired or wished for or sought.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A public announcement by a law enforcement agency that they desire to question or arrest some person.
A public announcement by a law enforcement agency that they desire to question or arrest some person.
A newspaper advertisement stating what is wanted.
An Interpol notice describing a wanted person and asking that he or she be arrested with a view to extradition.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.