Wanted, standing in front of a noun, means the police are looking for you. It is the word under the photograph on the poster and the phrase in the news report: a man wanted in connection with a robbery in Leeds.
The criminal sense goes with FOR and IN CONNECTION WITH — wanted for murder, wanted in connection with a fire — and the most wanted list holds the ones they want hardest. But wanted is also the plain past participle of want, and there it means desired: a much-wanted change, 'help wanted' in a shop window. After a linking verb it turns warm — to feel wanted is to feel that people are glad you are there, and unwanted is one of the saddest words in the language. Position tells you which one you are reading: a wanted man is a fugitive, a man who feels wanted is loved.
1adjectivewantedBeing searched for by the police.
“He is wanted for questioning about the break-in.”
2adjectivefeelMade to feel welcome and valued.
“Small gestures like that make new staff feel wanted.”
3adjectiveneededNeeded or asked for.
“The reforms were long overdue and badly wanted.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁weh₂- — empty
Proto-Germanic
*wanatōną — to be wanting, lack
Old Norse
vanta — to lack
Middle English
wanten — to lack, to need
English
want
English, today
wanted
Built from
From want + -ed. want comes from Middle English wanten (“to lack, to need”), from Old Norse vanta (“to lack”), from Proto-Germanic wanatōną (“to be wanting, lack”), from wanô (“lack, deficiency”), from Proto-Indo-European h₁weh₂- (“empty”). Cognate with Middle High German wan (“not full, empty”), Middle Dutch wan (“empty, poor”), Old English wana (“want, lack, absence, deficiency”), Latin vanus (“empty”). See wan, wan-.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA