What's the difference between want and yearn?

Want


Definition:

  • (v. i.) The state of not having; the condition of being without anything; absence or scarcity of what is needed or desired; deficiency; lack; as, a want of power or knowledge for any purpose; want of food and clothing.
  • (v. i.) Specifically, absence or lack of necessaries; destitution; poverty; penury; indigence; need.
  • (v. i.) That which is needed or desired; a thing of which the loss is felt; what is not possessed, and is necessary for use or pleasure.
  • (v. i.) A depression in coal strata, hollowed out before the subsequent deposition took place.
  • (v. t.) To be without; to be destitute of, or deficient in; not to have; to lack; as, to want knowledge; to want judgment; to want learning; to want food and clothing.
  • (v. t.) To have occasion for, as useful, proper, or requisite; to require; to need; as, in winter we want a fire; in summer we want cooling breezes.
  • (v. t.) To feel need of; to wish or long for; to desire; to crave.
  • (v. i.) To be absent; to be deficient or lacking; to fail; not to be sufficient; to fall or come short; to lack; -- often used impersonally with of; as, it wants ten minutes of four.
  • (v. i.) To be in a state of destitution; to be needy; to lack.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "Zayani reportedly cited the political sensitivity of naturalising Sunni expatriates and wanted to avoid provoking the opposition," the embassy said.
  • (2) I want to get some good insight before I make my decision,” said Hiddink.
  • (3) I want to be clear; the American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission,” said Obama in a speech to troops at US Central Command headquarters in Florida.
  • (4) Schneiderlin, valued at an improbable £27m, and the currently injured Jay Rodriguez are wanted by their former manager Mauricio Pochettino at Spurs, but the chairman Ralph Krueger has apparently called a halt to any more outgoings, saying: “They are part of the core that we have decided to keep at Southampton.” He added: “Jay Rodriguez and Morgan Schneiderlin are not for sale and they will be a part of our club as we enter the new season.” The new manager Ronald Koeman has begun rebuilding by bringing in Dusan Tadic and Graziano Pellè from the Dutch league and Krueger said: “We will have players coming in, we will make transfers to strengthen the squad.
  • (5) As players, we want what's right, and we feel like no one in his family should be able to own the team.” The NBA has also said that Shelly Sterling should not remain as owner.
  • (6) Joe, meanwhile, defends her right to say "negro" whenever she wants.
  • (7) We want to be sure that the country that’s providing all the infrastructure and support to the business is the one that reaps the reward by being able to collect the tax,” he said.
  • (8) We are pursuing legal action because there are still so many unanswered questions about the viability of Shenhua’s proposed koala plan and it seems at this point the plan does not guarantee the survival of the estimated 262 koalas currently living where Shenhua wants to put its mine,” said Ranclaud.
  • (9) Ryzhkov added: "I believe they want to keep him in prison for another three or four years at least, so he is not released until well after the next presidential elections in 2012."
  • (10) "They wanted to pass it almost like a secret negotiation," she said.
  • (11) We’ve spoken to them on the phone and they’ve all said they just want to come home.” A total of 93 pupils from Saint-Joseph were on the trip.
  • (12) But if you want to sustain a long-term relationship, it's important to try to develop other erotic interests and skills, because most partners will expect and demand that.
  • (13) We know that several hundred thousand investors are likely to want to access their pension pots in the first weeks and months after the start of the new tax year.
  • (14) Does anybody honestly believe the vast majority of migrants don’t want that too?
  • (15) Cameron had a legitimate argument, but the marines didn't want to hear it.
  • (16) The choice is partly technical – what kind of trading arrangement do we want with the EU?
  • (17) The move comes as a poll found that 74% of people want doctors to be allowed to help terminally ill people end their lives.
  • (18) Antoine Comte, a lawyer for the Schloss heirs, said all the family wanted was the return of the painting.
  • (19) "I don't want to go to Zurich, to some anonymous facility; I would want to do it in my own bed.
  • (20) "Law is all I've ever wanted to do, but it's so competitive.

Yearn


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To pain; to grieve; to vex.
  • (v. i.) To be pained or distressed; to grieve; to mourn.
  • (v. i. & t.) To curdle, as milk.
  • (v. i.) To be filled with longing desire; to be harassed or rendered uneasy with longing, or feeling the want of a thing; to strain with emotions of affection or tenderness; to long; to be eager.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The next few days may well determine whether, this time, such loyalty will be in vain; but, while yearning for a clarion call and what was described as "vision" in this paper's leading article yesterday, I need to pose some pretty stark questions to Guardian readers.
  • (2) The therapist thus provides space for yearnings and compensatory 'counterworlds', frequently leading to a positive contact in a subsequent dialog about the wishes.
  • (3) I yearned for solitude; most of all, I wanted to sleep alone.
  • (4) This earlier shadow, this yearning and refracted autobiography, places Ballard at the heart of fiction of the unreal.
  • (5) The right not to be imprisoned without a fair trial has become the centrepiece of respect for the rule of law all around the world, and yet, when Ms Lynch stated at Runnymede that the fundamental principles of the Magna Carta have “given hopes to those who face oppression” and have “given a voice to those yearning for the redress of wrongs,” it was impossible not to think of Shaker Aamer, and others in Guantánamo, also “yearning for the redress of wrongs,” but finding that yearning repeatedly unfulfilled.
  • (6) As a Scot, I've found it hard not to compare the yearning for independence in Kashmir to the yearning for independence in Scotland.
  • (7) They have also retrofitted old-style nationalism for their growing populations of uprooted citizens, who harbour yearnings for belonging and community as well as material plenitude.
  • (8) Last, and this is just a hunch as a career-long only-digital nerd: perhaps after more than a decade of digital influx, people are yearning a bit more for the physical, the tangible object, the easy-to-understand.
  • (9) How can free expression and the yearning for a private life be protected in this murky arena of a gossip free-for-all?
  • (10) Cooper yearns to get back to the stage and hopes to appear in the National's new production of Racine's Phèdre next year.
  • (11) And what anti-immigrant opinion actually yearns for is to see fewer of these people on their high street."
  • (12) Nostalgia was the soldiers’ malady – a state of mind that made life in the here and now a debilitating process of yearning for that which had been lost: rose-tinted peace, happiness, loved ones.
  • (13) To send once more a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says, "You matter to us.
  • (14) They yearn to be taken seriously as a credible, national political force.
  • (15) The marked increased in yearning for cardiac life support skills amongst medical and nursing staff has been a major factor in the proliferation of life support training programmes at the Centre.
  • (16) Her entertaining descriptions of her time spent cooking in Chendung's famous cooking school combined with her simple, concise translations of what she learned made me yearn to start cooking immediately.
  • (17) Because people whose entire news network is dedicated to stoking the fear, anger and passions of citizens by way of animating myths and repeated use of the word “they” – they all know that 100% accuracy is immaterial to that which the heart yearns to hear.
  • (18) Sue: No matter what age, what gender, everybody feels a deep heart and groin yearning for Mary.
  • (19) Bernie is giving voice to a yearning that is out there, and that’s going to be very hard for the political establishment to overcome.” “[Tea Party Republicans] see their life chances limited, their country deteriorating along with their hopes for their children,” she adds.
  • (20) The demise of traditional opposition movements has led many to look for alternative forms of struggle, and created a yearning for God-given moral lines.

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