Verb

(en verb)

To wish for or to desire (something).

* , chapter=13

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them. Soft heartedness caused more harm than good.}}

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=(Henry Petroski)

, title= Geothermal Energy , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.}}

* Dryden

The disposition, the manners, and the thoughts are all before it; where any of those are wanting' or imperfect, so much ' wants or is imperfect in the imitation of human life.

To lack, not to have (something).

*, II.3.7:

he that hath skill to be a pilot wants' a ship; and he that could govern a commonwealth' wants means to exercise his worth, hath not a poor office to manage.

* James Merrick

Not what we wish, but what we want , / Oh, let thy grace supply!

* Addison

I observed that your whip wanted a lash to it.

(colloquially with verbal noun as object) To be in need of; to require (something).

* 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), (w, Jacob's Room) Chapter 2

The mowing-machine always wanted oiling. Barnet turned it under Jacob's window, and it creaked—creaked, and rattled across the lawn and creaked again.

(dated) To be in a state of destitution; to be needy; to lack.

* Ben Jonson

You have a gift, sir (thank your education), / Will never let you want .

* Alexander Pope

For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find / What wants in blood and spirits, swelled with wind.

Verb

(en verb)

To make a prediction: to forecast, foretell, or estimate a future event on the basis of knowledge and reasoning; to prophesy a future event on the basis of mystical knowledge or power.

*1590 , E. Daunce, A Briefe Discourse on the Spanish State , 40

*:After he had renounced his father]]s bishoprick of Valentia in Spaine... and to attaine by degrees the Maiesty of , was created Duke of that place, gaue for his poesie, Aut Cesar, aut nihil . which being not fauoured from the heauens, had presently the [[event, euent the same predicted .

:2000 , , (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) , xiii.

::Professor Trelawney kept predicting Harry’s death, which he found extremely annoying.

:2012 , (Jeremy Bernstein), " A Palette of Particles" in (American Scientist) , Vol. 100, No. 2, p. 146

::The physics of elementary particles in the 20th century was distinguished by the observation of particles whose existence had been predicted by theorists sometimes decades earlier.

To imply.

*1886 , Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society , 177. 338

*:It is interesting to see how clearly theory predicts the difference between the ascending and descending curves of a dynamo.

To make predictions.

*1652 , J. Gaule, ???-?????? the mag-astro-mancer , 196

*:The devil can both predict and make predictors.

(transitive, military, rare) To direct a ranged weapon against a target by means of a predictor.

*1943 , L. Cheshire, Bomber Pilot , iii. 57

*:They're predicting us now; looks like a barrage.