wants

Noun (1)

want (countable and uncountable, plural wants)

1. (countable) A desire, wish, longing.
   • After a search which produced most of the things on our wants list, we went down to picnic on the shore in the sunshine-with a good stretch of shingle behind us over which no triffid could approach unheard.1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 249
2. (countable) Lack, absence, deficiency.
   • She showed a want of caution in renting her house to complete strangers.
3. (uncountable) Poverty.
   • Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want.1713, Jonathan Swift, A Preface to Bishop Burnet's Introduction
4. Something needed or desired; a thing of which the loss is felt.
   • Habitual superfluities become actual wants.1785, William Paley, Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy
5. (UK) A depression in coal strata, hollowed out before the subsequent deposition took place.

Noun (2)

want (plural wants)

1. (dialectal) A mole (Talpa europea).
   • Lic. She hath the ears of a want. / Pec. Doth she want ears?1592, John Lyly, Midas; republished in Charles Wentworth Dilke, editor, Old English Plays: Being a Selection from the Early Dramatic Writers, volume 1, London: Whittingham and Rowland, 1814

See all 19 meanings of want