Want or wont?
want is a verb meaning “To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave…”; wont is an adjective meaning “Accustomed or used (to or with a thing), accustomed or apt (to do something)”. Use want as a verb and wont as an adjective. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) want is about 89 times as common as wont.
What is the difference between want and wont?
| want | wont | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | noun, adjective, verb |
| Meaning | To wish for or desire (something); to feel a need or desire for; to crave, hanker, or demand To make it easy or tempting to do something undesirable, or to make it hard or challenging to refrain from doing it A desire, wish, longing | Accustomed or used (to or with a thing), accustomed or apt (to do something) |
| Example | I want you as a friend, not a foe | He awoke at the crack of dawn, as was his wont |
| Forms | wants, wanting, wanted | none |
| Pronunciation | /wɒnt/ /wɑnt/ /wʌnt/ | /wʌnt/ /wəʊnt/ /wɒnt/ |
| In writing | 1,096 times per million words | 12 times per million words |
Sources: want and wont in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of want and wont
want
- 1
To 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
- 2
A desire, wish, longing
- 3
A mole (Talpa europea)
- 4
To 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
- 5
Lack, absence, deficiency
She showed a want of caution in renting her house to complete strangers
- 6
To 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
- 7
Poverty
- 8
To desire (to experience desire); to wish
You can leave if you want
wont
- 1
Accustomed or used (to or with a thing), accustomed or apt (to do something)
He is wont to complain loudly about his job
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, want or wont?
want appears 1,096 times per million words; wont 12 times per million words.
want 1,096 times per million wordswont 12 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search want vs wont?
“want vs wont” is searched about 260 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“wont vs want”, “want or wont”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.