Other forms: wishes, wished, wishing
To wish is to want something you probably will not get. Candles blown out in one go with your eyes shut, one wish; a coin dropped into a fountain; the first star of the evening.
You also wish things to people — wish someone luck, wish them a happy birthday, wish them well. As a noun it is the thing wanted: make a wish, get your wish, her last wish. Two traps. Hope and wish are not the same, because you hope for what might happen and wish for what will not. And English puts a past form after it for the present moment — I wish I knew, I wish I were taller, I wish he would stop — which sounds wrong for a long time and then suddenly does not. In formal notices, wish just means want: passengers who wish to board.
1verbwishTo want something that is unlikely or impossible.
“I wish I lived closer to the sea.”
2verbhopeTo say that you hope someone has something good.
“They wished us luck and waved from the platform.”
3verbdesireTo want to do something.
“Anyone who wishes to speak should raise a hand.”
4nounhappenSomething you want to happen.
“She closed her eyes and made a wish.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Wish goes back through Middle English wisshen to Old English wȳsċan, and behind that to Proto-Germanic wunskijaną and a Proto-Indo-European root wenh₁-, which meant to wish or to love. German wünschen, Dutch wensen and Swedish önska are the same word in different clothes.
Proto-Indo-European
*wenh₁- — to wish, love
Proto-Germanic
*wunskijaną — to wish
Proto-West Germanic
*wunskijan
Old English
wȳsċan — to wish
Middle English
wisshen
English, today
wish
From Middle English wisshen, wischen, wuschen, from Old English wȳsċan (“to wish”), from Proto-West Germanic wunskijan, from Proto-Germanic wunskijaną (“to wish”), from Proto-Indo-European wenh₁- (“to wish, love”). Cognate with Scots wis (“to wish”), stq wonskje (“to wish”), West Frisian winskje (“to wish”), Dutch wensen (“to wish”), German wünschen (“to wish”), lb wënschen (“to wish”), Yiddish ווינטשן (“to wish”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål ønske (“to wish”), Faroese ynskja (“to wish, to desire”), Icelandic æskja, óska (“to wish”), Norwegian Nynorsk ønskja, ønskje, ønska, ønske, ynskja, ynskje (“to wish, to desire”), Swedish önska (“to wish”). Via PIE cognate with Latin Venus, veneror (“venerate, honour, love”), English wonder.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA