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The best other word for desire depends on how strong the feeling is and what it is for. For an ordinary wish, use wish, want or hope. For a deep, lasting feeling, use longing or yearning. For a sudden physical pull, such as food or a cigarette, use craving or urge. For a goal in life or work, use ambition or aspiration. As a verb, the everyday replacement is simply want, with long for, crave and aspire to when you need more force.
Desire sounds formal in most everyday sentences. Nobody says “I desire a coffee” unless they are joking. In writing, though, it does a lot of work, from essays on ambition to job letters and romance. The sections below take each meaning in turn with an example for every word, then cover the verb, set phrases such as the desired result, common mistakes and a short practice set with answers.
Quick picker
| Desire means… | Words to try | Example |
|---|---|---|
| a plain wish | wish, want, hope, preference, inclination | Her one wish was a quiet weekend. |
| a deep, lasting feeling | longing, yearning, hunger, thirst, ache | He felt a longing for the town where he grew up. |
| a sudden or physical pull | craving, urge, appetite, itch, impulse | By ten o’clock she had a craving for salty chips. |
| a goal you work toward | ambition, aspiration, aim, dream, drive | His ambition is to run his own clinic. |
| romantic or physical attraction | passion, attraction, lust, ardor | The novel is about passion and its cost. |
| to want (verb) | want, wish for, long for, yearn for, crave, covet, aspire to | Every player longs for a final like this. |
Desire as a plain wish or want
Most of the time, desire in a draft can be replaced with a shorter, warmer word. These are the safe swaps when nothing dramatic is going on.
- wish – the closest everyday noun. It was his wish to be buried near the sea.
- want – blunt and practical, often plural in the phrase needs and wants. The survey asked about customers’ wants, not just their complaints.
- hope – a wish with some doubt in it. Her hope is that the bridge reopens before winter.
- preference – a mild desire for one option over another. Let us know your seating preference.
- inclination – a leaning, often weak. I had no inclination to argue after a ten-hour shift.
- will – desire backed by intention, mostly in set phrases. She lost the will to keep going.
A quick test: if you can say “I would like” instead, you probably do not need desire at all. “Our desire is to help you” reads more naturally as “We want to help.”
A deep or lasting desire
These nouns describe a desire that stays with someone, often for something far away, lost or out of reach. They suit fiction, memoir and personal essays.
- longing – steady and often sad. Her letters are full of longing for home.
- yearning – stronger and more emotional than longing. He had a yearning to see his father one more time.
- hunger – figurative, suggests need and energy. The new coach has a hunger for trophies.
- thirst – figurative, often for knowledge, power or adventure. Her thirst for knowledge kept her in the library until closing.
- ache – a desire that hurts. There was an ache in him for the years he had missed.
- pining – longing that wears a person down, often for a person. The dog’s pining for its owner worried the vet.
- nostalgia – longing specifically for the past. The song brought on a wave of nostalgia for the nineties.
Hunger and thirst are metaphors drawn from the body: they turn a want into a need. If you want more of that kind of language, the page on metaphors for hunger shows how writers stretch the image.
A sudden or physical desire
When the desire comes on quickly and is hard to ignore, these words carry the right pressure.
- craving – strong, usually for food, drink or a substance. Pregnancy gave her a craving for pickles.
- urge – a sudden push to act. I had the urge to laugh in the middle of the meeting.
- impulse – an unplanned urge that leads to action. On an impulse, he bought two tickets to Lisbon.
- appetite – desire for food, or figuratively for something like risk. The bank has little appetite for new loans this year.
- itch – informal, a restless desire. After a year at home, she had an itch to travel again.
- temptation – desire for something you think you should resist. The temptation to check my phone never really goes away.
Desire as a goal or ambition
In cover letters, personal statements and speeches, desire usually means a goal. These words sound more purposeful.
- ambition – a big goal you work for. My ambition is to qualify as a structural engineer.
- aspiration – formal, often plural. The program supports students with aspirations in medicine.
- aim – clear and practical. The aim of the project is to cut waiting times.
- goal – the most neutral word for a target. Her goal for the year is to finish the first draft.
- dream – emotional, sometimes far off. Opening a bakery was his dream for twenty years.
- drive – the energy behind the goal, not the goal itself. We are looking for someone with real drive.
- motivation – the reason you want something. His motivation was to make his parents proud.
In a personal statement, “I have a strong desire to study law” is fine but flat. “I want to study law because…” followed by a real reason is stronger than any synonym. For more ways to talk about goals, see idioms for achieving goals.
Romantic or physical desire
Desire often means attraction to a person. The synonyms differ a lot in tone, so choose carefully.
| Word | Tone | Example |
|---|---|---|
| attraction | neutral, everyday | There was an obvious attraction between them. |
| passion | intense, often positive | Their passion cooled after the first year. |
| infatuation | short-lived, a little foolish | It was an infatuation, not love. |
| ardor (UK: ardour) | literary, old-fashioned | His ardor faded once she agreed to marry him. |
| lust | purely physical, often negative | The film treats lust as a kind of trap. |
| chemistry | informal, mutual attraction | The two leads have real chemistry on screen. |
Lust is the strongest and least polite of these. It is also used for non-romantic greed, as in lust for power or wanderlust. For gentler romantic language, the metaphors for love page has more options.
Desire as a verb
The verb desire is formal and slightly old-fashioned. In most writing, one of these fits better.
- want – the default. What do you want for dinner?
- would like – polite. I would like a window seat, please.
- wish for – a hope that may not come true. They wished for snow all December.
- long for / yearn for – deep, often sad. She longed for a letter from her brother.
- crave – physical or intense. After the race, I craved anything sweet.
- covet – to want something that belongs to someone else. He coveted his neighbor’s corner office.
- aspire to – to aim at a higher goal. She aspires to a seat on the board.
- hanker after / hanker for – informal, a nagging want. I’ve been hankering for a proper curry all week.
- fancy – British, informal. Do you fancy a walk?
- set your heart on – to want one thing very much. He had set his heart on the red bike.
Set phrases with desire
Some phrases with desire are fixed, and the replacement depends on the phrase, not the word.
| Phrase | Plainer alternative |
|---|---|
| the desired result / outcome | the result we wanted, the intended result, the target |
| if you so desire | if you like, if you wish, if you prefer |
| leave a lot to be desired | be disappointing, fall short, be poor |
| have no desire to | have no wish to, have no interest in, not want to |
| a burning desire | a strong urge, a real hunger, a passion |
| heart’s desire | what someone most wants, a dream |
Example: The hotel’s breakfast left a lot to be desired means it was poor. Swapping in “left a lot to be wished” would sound wrong, because the phrase is fixed.
Words that are easy to misuse
- Covet is not just “want”. It means wanting something that someone else has, and it can sound envious. I covet a new laptop is odd unless you mean a friend’s.
- Lust is not a neutral synonym. In a cover letter, “a lust for learning” will raise eyebrows. Use passion or enthusiasm.
- Craving is physical. “A craving for justice” works only as a deliberate figure of speech; “a demand for justice” or “a hunger for justice” usually fits better.
- Aspire takes “to”. Write aspire to a career in law or aspire to become a lawyer, not aspire a career.
- Desirous is very formal. “Desirous of” belongs in legal or historical writing. In normal prose, use eager to or keen to.
Before and after
Before: I have always had a desire to work with children, and this desire grew when I volunteered at a summer camp. My desire is to become a primary teacher.
After: I have always wanted to work with children, and the wish grew stronger when I volunteered at a summer camp. My ambition is to become a primary teacher.
The rewrite keeps one idea per word: wanted for the general feeling, wish for its growth, ambition for the goal.
Practice
Choose the best word for each gap.
- After the hike, I had a real ______ for a cold drink. (ambition / craving / aspiration)
- Her lifelong ______ is to compete in the Olympics. (urge / ambition / lust)
- Living abroad, he felt a constant ______ for his mother’s cooking. (longing / preference / impulse)
- On a sudden ______, she dyed her hair blue. (aim / impulse / aspiration)
- Please mark your seating ______ on the form. (yearning / preference / craving)
- The service in that restaurant leaves a lot to be ______. (wanted / desired / wished)
Answers: 1 craving, 2 ambition, 3 longing, 4 impulse, 5 preference, 6 desired (the phrase is fixed).
Quick answers
What is a simple word for desire?
Want or wish. Both are plain and fit almost any sentence where the desire is not especially strong.
What is a stronger word for desire?
Longing, yearning and craving are stronger. Longing and yearning suit emotional desires; craving suits physical ones.
What is a formal word for desire?
Aspiration for a goal, inclination for a mild wish, and preference for a choice between options. The verb desire itself is already formal.
What is the opposite of desire?
Aversion, reluctance, indifference or distaste, depending on whether the person dislikes something or simply does not care.
If you are replacing several formal words in one piece, the guides to other ways to say “I would love to” and another word for encourage work the same way: pick the word by meaning, then check the tone.