ppl. a. [f. WANT v. + -ED1.]
1. In the senses of the verb: a. Lacking, missing; desired, needed.
1697. Dryden, Æneis, IX. 346. Make me but happy in his safe Return, Whose wanted Presence I can only mourn.
1718. Pope, Iliad, XIII. 338. To whom the Cretan: Enter, and receive The wanted weapons.
1801. Southey, Lett. (1856), I. 167. They will not pay him for executing a wanted work.
b. dial. Dispensed with.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., I. 84. And locks would be a wanted thing, To keep out thieves at night.
c. Of a person: Sought for by the police.
1903. G. R. Sims, Living London, III. 18/2. Down the long lines of beds the uniformed figures go,… till they reach the bedside of the two ‘wanted’ men, who awake to find themselves in the grip of the law.
1912. Sphere, 28 Dec., 338/3. A periodical called The Detective, in which portraits of wanted persons are given.
2. absol. as sb. Chiefly in plural. Persons or things that are ‘wanted’ (i.e., advertised for, sought by the police, etc.). Chiefly colloq.
1793. W. Roberts, Looker-on, No. 51, ¶ 5. I design to publish a list of Wanteds, wholly for the use of your Paper.
1903. Daily Chron., 25 March, 3/4. A policeman arresting a ‘wanted’ in a common lodging-house.
1907. Shrewsbury Chron., 27 Dec., heading of Advt. column, Wanteds.
1910. Sat. Rev., 22 Jan., 98/2. Two ‘wanteds’ figured conspicuously in a crowd that was trying to rush, very uglily, the Conservative candidate’s cart at an open-air meeting in Shoreditch.
