Quest vs Want - What's the difference?
quest | want |
A journey or effort in pursuit of a goal (often lengthy, ambitious, or fervent); a mission.
* (William Shakespeare)
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-01
, author=Katie L. Burke
, title=Ecological Dependency
, volume=101, issue=1, page=64
, magazine=
The act of seeking, or looking after anything; attempt to find or obtain; search; pursuit.
(obsolete) Request; desire; solicitation.
* Herbert
(obsolete) A group of people making search or inquiry.
* (William Shakespeare)
(obsolete) Inquest; jury of inquest.
* (William Shakespeare)
To seek or pursue a goal; to undertake a mission or job.
To search for; to examine.
To wish for or to desire (something).
* , chapter=13
, title= * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=(Henry Petroski)
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* Dryden
To lack, not to have (something).
*, II.3.7:
* James Merrick
* Addison
(colloquially with verbal noun as object) To be in need of; to require (something).
* 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), (w, Jacob's Room) Chapter 2
(dated) To be in a state of destitution; to be needy; to lack.
* Ben Jonson
* Alexander Pope
(countable) A desire, wish, longing.
(countable, often, followed by of) Lack, absence.
* , King Henry VI Part 2 , act 4, sc. 8:
* :
(uncountable) Poverty.
* Jonathan Swift
Something needed or desired; a thing of which the loss is felt.
* Paley
(UK, mining) A depression in coal strata, hollowed out before the subsequent deposition took place.
As an abbreviation quest
is quantized electronic structure.As a proper noun want is
a personification of want.quest
English
(wikipedia quest)Noun
(en noun)- Cease your quest of love.
citation, passage=In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature , David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call “the next big one.” His quest leads him around the world to study a variety of suspect zoonoses—animal-hosted pathogens that infect humans.}}
- Gad not abroad at every quest and call / Of an untrained hope or passion.
- The senate hath sent about three several quests to search you out.
- What lawful quest have given their verdict?
Derived terms
* sidequestVerb
(en verb)want
English
Alternative forms
* waunt (obsolete)Verb
(en verb)The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=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.}}
Geothermal Energy, volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=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.}}
- 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.
- he that hath skill to be a pilot wants' a ship; and he that could govern a commonwealth' wants means to exercise his worth, hath not a poor office to manage.
- Not what we wish, but what we want , / Oh, let thy grace supply!
- I observed that your whip wanted a lash to it.
- The mowing-machine always wanted oiling. Barnet turned it under Jacob's window, and it creaked—creaked, and rattled across the lawn and creaked again.
- You have a gift, sir (thank your education), / Will never let you want .
- For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find / What wants in blood and spirits, swelled with wind.
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb. SeeSynonyms
* (desire) set one's heart on, wish for, would like * (lack) be without * (require) need, be in need ofDerived terms
* I want to know * want-away * wanted * want for * wanting *Noun
(poverty)- [H]eavens and honour be witness, that no want of resolution in me, but only my followers' base and ignominious treasons, makes me betake me to my heels.
- For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
- For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
- For want of a horse the rider was lost.
- For want of a rider the battle was lost.
- For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
- And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
- Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want .
- Habitual superfluities become actual wants .
