How to Use for (the) want of in a Sentence

for (the) want of

idiom

• True, no one goes to the barricades just for want of a Mercedes-Benz.
  — New York Times, 18 Mar. 2022
• Neither hears the truth, as often as is wholesome, and both suffer for the want of the corrective.
  — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 9 Oct. 2023
• Pants ride lower and shirts cling tighter for want of a perch, but there’s something to be said for a loose shirt free to snatch a breeze on your behalf.
  — Melvin Backman, Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2023
• There are no treatments that address the genetic cause of the disease, but not for want of trying.
  — Ryan Cross, BostonGlobe.com, 8 Dec. 2022
• That is not for want of effort by Britain’s conservative tabloids.
  — Stephen Castle, New York Times, 2 Jan. 2023
• If public transportation had to cut service for want of fares, the city would grow unfriendly to work.
  — Nathan Heller, The New Yorker, 16 Oct. 2023
• Spooked by a belligerent Beijing, India is in a proto-alliance—for want of a better phrase—with the U.S.
  — Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ, 6 Oct. 2020
• Climate leadership is failing, though not for want of ideas.
  — Sarah Sloat, WIRED, 20 Nov. 2022
• This is, for want of a better term, a quietly startling vehicle to drive.
  — Mike Duff, Car and Driver, 27 Apr. 2021
• School bus services are being canceled and delayed for want of drivers.
  — New York Times, 5 Nov. 2021
• That was a time when actually people needed a bit of—for want of a better word—humor and silliness and joy and irony.
  — Vogue, 29 May 2022
• The perception is that there is a, for want of a better expression, a code switching that people lean into.
  — Mia Galuppo, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 Jan. 2024
• The disconnect seemed, for want of a better way of putting it, dimensional—a disturbance in the cosmos.
  — Donald Antrim, The New Yorker, 9 Aug. 2021
• That amendment failed for want of support from any other council member.
  — Dallas News, 23 Mar. 2022
• The enclave’s sole power plant shut down Wednesday afternoon for want of fuel.
  — Michael Birnbaum, Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2023
• Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, is drying out for want of rain.
  — Diana Durán, Washington Post, 4 Oct. 2023
• Moctezuma is a capricious ruler who executes courtiers for minute breaches of protocol and who might just lose an entire kingdom for want of a horse.
  — Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Los Angeles Times, 2 Jan. 2024
• By that time, the grandiose progressive era had started to make way for punk, new wave and for want of a better word ‘stadium’ rock, or AOR as the radio programmers branded it.
  — Alessandro Corona, The Enquirer, 3 Nov. 2022
• Patients died for want of oxygen, and corpses were cremated in parks and parking lots as crematoriums ran out of space.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 5 Aug. 2021
• Our spy satellites had been counting their missiles but not the potatoes rotting in the field for want of fuel to take them to market, and so the CIA overestimated the true strength of the Soviets.
  — Washington Post, 25 Mar. 2022
• But that’s not for want of natural and historical wonders.
  — San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 May 2022
• His brother Perry is drifting into drug abuse for want of a religious center.
  — Mark Athitakis, USA TODAY, 4 Oct. 2021
• The anti-trust lawsuit against the Lathrop Company was dismissed in 1971 for want of prosecution.
  — David Reamer, Anchorage Daily News, 11 Oct. 2020
• Christopher Esber is a good example of playing between dress-up moments and moments where things can be, for want of a better word, simpler.
  — Mark Holgate, Vogue, 13 Dec. 2023
• Banning cars from some roads merely increased traffic on others; local businesses were dying for want of customers; the disabled could not get about.
  — The Economist, 3 Oct. 2020
• But mathematicians couldn’t come up with counterexamples, and not for want of trying.
  — Quanta Magazine, 12 Apr. 2021
• Too many Americans have been forced to rely on smartphones for want of better internet options during the pandemic.
  — Damon Beres, The Atlantic, 8 Sep. 2022
• All were dismissed for want of documentation, McNutt says.
  — Meredith Wadman, Science | AAAS, 13 Apr. 2021
• The charges were eventually dismissed for want of prosecution.
  — Cameron Knight, The Enquirer, 28 Mar. 2022
• Cusipaucar, 58, cultivates 50 varieties of potato, but can market only four, for want of commercial demand.
  — Simeon Tegel, Washington Post, 8 Jan. 2024

Last Updated: 18 Nov 2024