How do you use the word "want" in a sentence?

Here are real-life examples of using "want": It's because you don't want to be alone. I don't want to be lame; I want to be cool!!

Want Meaning

/wɒnt/

Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Definition

verbTo wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand.

verbTo wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand., To make it easy or tempting to do something undesirable, or to make it hard or challenging to refrain from doing it.

Sentence Examples

It's because you don't want to be alone.

I don't want to be lame; I want to be cool!!

Do you want some more tea?

Synonyms & Antonyms

Synonyms:

need lack desire

Antonyms:

None

CEFR Practice Quiz

I ____ to buy a new car, but I don't have enough money.

CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)

Do you ____ some more coffee after you finish your breakfast this morning in the beautiful local cafe today?

Word Origin & History

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-.

Literary Quotations & Historical Citations

"And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them. Soft heartedness caused more harm than good." — 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

"Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal." — 2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:

"But now it's different, if the police want him for murder." — 2010, Fred Vargas, The Chalk Circle Man, Vintage Canada, →ISBN, page 75:

"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." — 1741, The Gentleman's and London Magazine: Or Monthly Chronologer, 1741-1794, page 559:

"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 ..." — 1839, Chambers's Journal, page 123:

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