Lac
name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A resinous substance or lacquer produced mainly on the banyan tree by the female of Kerria lacca, a scale insect. countable, uncountable
"At the turn of the century, the ever-expanding electrical industry was running low on shellac, a resin secreted by the female lac bug which could be used as an insulating material."
- 2 Dated spelling of lakh.
"[…] Lake [i.e., Gerard Lake, 1st Viscount Lake] should not have leisure to breathe for a moment, and calamities would fall on lacs of human beings in continued war by the attacks of his army, which would overwhelm like the waves of the sea."
- 3 Clipping of Cadillac abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, slang
"Last night I was driving around in my lac."
- 4 Laceration. colloquial, countable, uncountable
"hand lac"
- 5 Initialism of looked-after children. UK, abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, plural, plural-only
Show 4 more definitions
- 6 Acronym of L-acetylcarnitine (“acetylated L-carnitine”). abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, uncountable
- 7 Initialism of licensed acupuncturist. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism
- 8 resinlike substance secreted by certain lac insects; used in e.g. varnishes and sealing wax wordnet
- 9 Abbreviation of leading aircraftman. abbreviation, alt-of, countable
- 1 A province of Chad.
- 2 A surname.
- 3 Initialism of Line of Actual Control. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism
"Thousands of soldiers have been facing off since April on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), or the de facto border, including at the glacial Pangong Tso lake."
- 4 Initialism of Los Angeles, California. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism
- 5 Initialism of Los Angeles Clippers. Canada, US, abbreviation, alt-of, initialism
Example
More examples"At the turn of the century, the ever-expanding electrical industry was running low on shellac, a resin secreted by the female lac bug which could be used as an insulating material."
Etymology
From Portuguese laca, from Hindi लाख (lākh)/Urdu لاکھ (lākh) or cognates in other Indo-Aryan languages, from Sanskrit लाक्षा (lākṣā). Doublet of lacquer.
From Cadillac.
From laceration.
Related phrases
More for "lac"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.