want

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
want/wɒnt/

▶verb

• 1 have a desire to possess or do (something); wish for.

  ■ wish to speak to (someone).

  ■ (be wanted) (of a suspected criminal) be sought by the police for questioning.

  ■ desire (someone) sexually.

• 2 informal, chiefly Brit. (of a thing) require to be attended to: the wheel wants greasing.

  ■ should or need to do something.

• 3 (often want for) literary lack or be short of something desirable or essential.

▶noun

• 1 lack or deficiency.

  ■ poverty.

• 2 a desire.

– derivatives
wanter noun.

– origin ME: the noun from ON vant, neut. of vanr ‘lacking’; the verb from ON vanta ‘be lacking’.