Want vs Wane - What's the difference?
want | wane |
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.
A gradual diminution in power, value, intensity etc.
* 1853 , , "Bartleby, the Scrivener," in Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories'', New York: Penguin, 1968; reprinted 1995 as ''Bartleby , ISBN 0146000129, p. 3,
* 1913 , Michael Ott, The Catholic Encyclopedia , "",
The lunar phase during which the sun seems to illuminate less of the moon as its sunlit area becomes less visible from Earth.
* 1926 , ",
(literary) The end of a period.
* 1845 , ,
(woodworking) A rounded corner caused by lack of wood, often showing bark.
* 2002 , Peter Ross, Appraisal and Repair of Timber Structures ,
(label) To progressively lose its splendor, value, ardor, power, intensity etc.; to decline.
* (John Dryden) (1631-1700)
* Sir (Josiah Child) (1630-1699)
* 1851 , (Herman Melville), (Moby-Dick) , :
* 1902 , (John Masefield), "":
*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title=
, passage=And so it had always pleased M. Stutz to expect great things from the dark young man whom he had first seen in his early twenties?; and his expectations had waxed rather than waned on hearing the faint bruit of the love of Ivor and Virginia—for Virginia, M. Stutz thought, would bring fineness to a point in a man like Ivor Marlay, […].}}
(label) Said of light that dims or diminishes in strength.
* 1894 , (Algernon Charles Swinburne), :
Said of the Moon as it passes through the phases of its monthly cycle where its surface is less and less visible.
* 1866 , (Sabine Baring-Gould), Curious Myths of the Middle Ages , "":
(label) Said of a time period that comes to an end.
* 1894 , (Algernon Charles Swinburne), "":
To decrease physically in size, amount, numbers or surface.
* 1815 , (Walter Scott), (Guy Mannering) , chapter XIX:
* {{quote-web, date=2012-08-30, author=Ann Gibbons, site=Science Now
, title= To cause to decrease.
* 1797 , (Anna Seward),
As verbs the difference between want and wane
is that want is to wish for or to desire (something) while wane is to progressively lose its splendor, value, ardor, power, intensity etc.; to decline.As nouns the difference between want and wane
is that want is a desire, wish, longing while wane is a gradual diminution in power, value, intensity etc.As a proper noun Want
is a personification of want.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 .
Derived terms
* want adReferences
Statistics
*wane
English
Etymology 1
The noun is derived from (etyl) ("-ig" being a derivatem suffix, "-er" the suffix of comparatives).Noun
(en noun)- In the morning, one might say, his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o'clock, meridian -- his dinner hour -- it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued blazing -- but, as it were, with a gradual wane -- till six o'clock, PM, or thereabouts; after which, I saw no more of the proprietor of the face, [...].
- His influence which was on the wane during the reign of Joseph II grew still less during the reign of Leopold II (1790-2).
- It was very dark, for although the sky was clear the moon was now well in the wane , and would not rise till the small hours.
- The situation of the Venetian party in the wane of the eighteenth century had become extremely critical.
p. 11,
- Sapwood, or even bark, may appear on the corners, or may have been cut off, resulting in wane , or missing timber.
Synonyms
* decrease, declineUsage notes
* When referring to the moon or a time period, the word is found mostly in prepositional phrases like (term) or (term).Verb
(wan)- You saw but sorrow in its waning form.
- Land and trade ever will wax and wane together.
- I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust.
- And in the cool twilight when the sea-winds wane
“Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./1/1
- The skies may hold not the splendour of sundown fast; / It wanes into twilight as dawn dies down into day.
- The fall of Jack, and the subsequent fall of Jill, simply represent the vanishing of one moon-spot after another, as the moon wanes .
- Fast as autumn days toward winter: yet it seems//Here that autumn wanes not, here that woods and streams
- The snow which had been for some time waning , had given way entirely under the fresh gale of the preceding night.
Genome Brings Ancient Girl to Life, accessdate=2012-09-04 , passage=Denisovans had little genetic diversity, suggesting that their small population waned further as populations of modern humans expanded.}}
- (Ben Jonson)
Letter to Mrs Childers of Yorkshire:
- Proud once and princely was the mansion, ere a succession of spendthrifts waned away its splendour.