Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use want in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Want means to wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand. Example: “I want you as a friend, not a foe.”

Examples of want by meaning

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

  • I want you as a friend, not a foe.
  • What do you want to eat? I want you to leave. I never wanted to go back to live with my mother.
  • He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

verbTo make it easy or tempting to do something undesirable, or to make it hard or challenging to refrain from doing it.

  • The game developers of Candy Crush want you to waste large, copious amounts of your money on in-game purchases to buy boosters and lives.
  • Depression wants you to feel like the world is dark and that you are not worthy of happiness. The first step to making your life better from this day forward is to stop believing these lies.

verbTo wish, desire, or demand to see, have the presence of or do business with.

  • Ma’am, you are exactly the professional we want for this job.
  • Danish police want him for embezzlement.
  • But now it's different, if the police want him for murder.2010, Fred Vargas, The Chalk Circle Man, Vintage Canada, →ISBN, page 75

verbTo desire (to experience desire); to wish.

  • You can leave if you want.

verbTo be advised to do or aim for something (compare should, ought).

  • You’ll want to repeat this three or four times to get the best result.

verbTo lack and be in need of or require (something, such as a noun or verbal noun).

  • That chair wants fixing and a clean.
  • What you really want is a good smack!
  • The mowing-machine always wanted oiling.1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter II, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC...

verbTo be lacking or deficient or absent.

  • There was something wanting in the play.

verbTo be in a state of destitution; to be needy; to lack.

  • The paupers desperately want.

More sentences with want

  • If you want to know the meaning of a word, look it up in the dictionary.From the entry dictionary
  • I don't think he wants to go. — Yeah, well, we're going anyway, and he can deal.From the entry deal
  • The new teacher was strict and the students did not want to abide by his rules.From the entry abide
  • That TV programme that you wanted to watch is on now.From the entry on
  • Do you have any more fours? I want to make this a little taller.From the entry four
  • She's studying medicine at university because she wants to be a doctor in the future.From the entry medicine
  • If we want the motion to pass, we will need a second.From the entry second
  • Now, you want to protect me. An hour ago, you were mercilessly bullying me!From the entry now
  • If you want to buy a bicycle, you need to put the money in your piggy bank.From the entry bank
  • Kids should get help from big people if they want to use the kitchen.From the entry big
  • He wants half of the take if he helps with the job.From the entry take
  • We just wanted to take off a few thou, which we easily did with fine sandpaper.From the entry thou
  • If you want to jack your stats you just write off failures as invalid results.From the entry jack
  • If you want me to buy your weed I’ll need a picture.From the entry picture
  • "Did you visit the museum?" "I wanted to, but it was closed."From the entry to
  • Don't want to go? All the better since I lost the tickets.From the entry all
  • How do you want to angle this when we talk to the client?From the entry angle
  • They're open twenty-four seven; you can go there any time you want.From the entry twenty-four seven
  • He knows what he wants and what to do to get it.From the entry what
  • So I was right all along? C'mon. I want to hear you say it.From the entry right
  • Listen, brother, I don't know what you want, but I’m not interested.From the entry brother
  • Before the birth of the man's child, he said: "I want a son, not a daughter."From the entry son
  • I wanted a plate of shrimp, not a bucket of chicken.From the entry not
  • Tsang is great but Zhou is such a hack — I wouldn't want him on my project.From the entry hack
  • Did you want this one or that one? ―Give me both.From the entry both

Meaning of want

  1. verb To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand.
  2. verb To make it easy or tempting to do something undesirable, or to make it hard or challenging to refrain from doing it.
  3. verb To wish, desire, or demand to see, have the presence of or do business with.

Full definition of want

Questions about want in a sentence

How do you use want in a sentence?
Want is used as a verb and noun. For example: “I want you as a friend, not a foe.”
What is a short sentence with want?
“The paupers desperately want.”
What does want mean?
Want means to wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: want (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use want in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/want. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.