[syn: want, need, require]
3. hunt or look for; want for a particular reason;
- Example: "Your former neighbor is wanted by the FBI"
- Example: "Uncle Sam wants you"
4. wish or demand the presence of;
- Example: "I want you here at noon!"
5. be without, lack; be deficient in;
- Example: "want courtesy"
- Example: "want the strength to go on living"
- Example: "flood victims wanting food and shelter"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Want \Want\, v. i. [Icel. vanta to be wanting. See Want to
lack.]
[1913 Webster]
1. To be absent; to be deficient or lacking; to fail; not to
be sufficient; to fall or come short; to lack; -- often
used impersonally with of; as, it wants ten minutes of
four.
[1913 Webster]
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. --Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
2. To be in a state of destitution; to be needy; to lack.
[1913 Webster]
You have a gift, sir (thank your education),
Will never let you want. --B. Jonson.
[1913 Webster]
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits, swelled with wind.
--Pope.
[1913 Webster]
Note: Want was formerly used impersonally with an indirect
object. "Him wanted audience." --Chaucer.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Want \Want\ (277), n. [Originally an adj., from Icel. vant,
neuter of vanr lacking, deficient. [root]139. See Wane, v.
i.]
[1913 Webster]
1. The state of not having; the condition of being without
anything; absence or scarcity of what is needed or
desired; deficiency; lack; as, a want of power or
knowledge for any purpose; want of food and clothing.
[1913 Webster]
And me, his parent, would full soon devour
For want of other prey. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
From having wishes in consequence of our wants, we
often feel wants in consequence of our wishes.
--Rambler.
[1913 Webster]
Pride is as loud a beggar as want, and more saucy.
--Franklin.
[1913 Webster]
2. Specifically, absence or lack of necessaries; destitution;
poverty; penury; indigence; need.
[1913 Webster]
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches,
as to conceive how others can be in want. --Swift.
[1913 Webster]
3. That which is needed or desired; a thing of which the loss
is felt; what is not possessed, and is necessary for use
or pleasure.
[1913 Webster]
Habitual superfluities become actual wants. --Paley.
[1913 Webster]
4. (Mining) A depression in coal strata, hollowed out before
the subsequent deposition took place. [Eng.]
[1913 Webster]
Syn: Indigence; deficiency; defect; destitution; lack;
failure; dearth; scarceness.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Want \Want\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Wanted; p. pr. & vb. n.
Wanting.]
[1913 Webster]
1. To be without; to be destitute of, or deficient in; not to
have; to lack; as, to want knowledge; to want judgment; to
want learning; to want food and clothing.
[1913 Webster]
They that want honesty, want anything. --Beau. & Fl.
[1913 Webster]
Nor think, though men were none,
That heaven would want spectators, God want praise.
--Milton.
[1913 Webster]
The unhappy never want enemies. --Richardson.
[1913 Webster]
2. To have occasion for, as useful, proper, or requisite; to
require; to need; as, in winter we want a fire; in summer
we want cooling breezes.
[1913 Webster]
3. To feel need of; to wish or long for; to desire; to crave.
" What wants my son?" --Addison.
[1913 Webster]
I want to speak to you about something. --A.
Trollope.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Wa'n't \Wa'n't\
A colloquial contraction of was not.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
want
n 1: a state of extreme poverty [syn: privation, want,
deprivation, neediness]
2: the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable;
"there is a serious lack of insight into the problem"; "water
is the critical deficiency in desert regions"; "for want of a
nail the shoe was lost" [syn: lack, deficiency, want]
3: anything that is necessary but lacking; "he had sufficient
means to meet his simple needs"; "I tried to supply his
wants" [syn: need, want]
4: a specific feeling of desire; "he got his wish"; "he was
above all wishing and desire" [syn: wish, wishing,
want]
v 1: feel or have a desire for; want strongly; "I want to go
home now"; "I want my own room" [syn: desire, want]
2: have need of; "This piano wants the attention of a competent
tuner" [syn: want, need, require]
3: hunt or look for; want for a particular reason; "Your former
neighbor is wanted by the FBI"; "Uncle Sam wants you"
4: wish or demand the presence of; "I want you here at noon!"
5: be without, lack; be deficient in; "want courtesy"; "want the
strength to go on living"; "flood victims wanting food and
shelter"
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
224 Moby Thesaurus words for "want":
absence, ache to, adulteration, aim at, ardor, arrearage, ask,
awayness, bare cupboard, bare necessities, bare subsistence,
be desirous of, be dying to, be found wanting, be hurting for,
be in want, be indicated, be inferior, be insufficient, be pinched,
be poor, become, befit, beggarliness, beggary, behoove, blank,
break, burn to, call for, choose, choose to, claim, clamor for,
collapse, come short, concupiscence, covet, crave, cry for,
cry out for, curiosity, dearly love to, dearth, decline,
defalcation, default, defect, defectibility, defectiveness,
deficiency, deficit, demand, demand for, deprivation, desiderate,
desideration, desideratum, desire, destitution, discontinuity,
drive, drought, eagerness, empty purse, erroneousness, essential,
essentials, exact, exigency, exiguousness, fail, fail of,
fall away, fall short, fall shy, fallibility, famine, fancy,
fantasy, faultiness, favor, follow, gap, go on welfare,
grinding poverty, gripe, hand-to-mouth existence, have designs on,
have nothing on, have occasion for, hiatus, homelessness, hope,
horme, immaturity, impairment, impecuniousness, imperfection,
impoverishment, impurity, inaccuracy, inadequacy, inadequateness,
incompleteness, indigence, indispensable, inexactitude,
inexactness, insufficiency, intellectual curiosity, interval,
itch to, kick the beam, lack, lacuna, lag, libido, like, like to,
long to, lose ground, love, love to, lust, lust after,
lust for learning, meagerness, mediocrity, mendicancy, mind, miss,
missing link, moneylessness, must, must item, necessaries,
necessities, necessitousness, necessity, need, need for, need to,
neediness, neverness, nonexistence, nonoccurrence, nonpresence,
not answer, not approach, not come near, not compare, not hack it,
not make it, not make out, not measure up, not qualify,
not stretch, not suffice, nowhereness, occasion, omission, ought,
outage, passion, patchiness, pauperism, pauperization, penury,
pinch, play second fiddle, pleasure, pleasure principle, poorness,
prefer, prerequire, prerequirement, prerequisite, privation,
rank under, require, requirement, requisite, requisition,
run short, run short of, scantiness, serve, sexual desire,
shortage, shortcoming, shortfall, should, sketchiness, skimpiness,
slump, starvation, starve, stop short, subserve, subtraction,
take doing, take to, the necessary, the needful,
thirst for knowledge, ullage, undevelopment, unevenness,
unperfectedness, unsoundness, urge, want doing, want to, wantage,
wanting, will, will and pleasure, wish, wish fulfillment, wish to,
wish to goodness, wish very much, would fain do