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Lack

//læk// noun, verb

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A deficiency or need (of something desirable or necessary); an absence, want, dearth. countable, uncountable

    "[…] let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation;"

  2. 2
    Archaic form of lakh. alt-of, archaic

    "a lack of rupees"

  3. 3
    the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable wordnet
  4. 4
    A defect or failing; moral or spiritual degeneracy. countable, obsolete, uncountable

    "In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned."

Verb
  1. 1
    To be without, not to have, to need, to require. stative, transitive

    "My life lacks excitement."

  2. 2
    be without wordnet
  3. 3
    To be short (of or for something). intransitive

    "He'll never lack for company while he's got all that money."

  4. 4
    To be insufficiently prepared wordnet
  5. 5
    To be in want. intransitive, obsolete

    "The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger […]"

Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    To see the deficiency in (someone or something); to find fault with, to malign, reproach. obsolete

    "That is Mede þe Mayde quod she · hath noyed me ful oft / And ylakked my lemman."

  2. 7
    To be off one's guard.

    "His opps caught him lacking."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English lack, lakke, lak, from Old English *læc (“deficiency, lack, want”), from Proto-West Germanic *lak, from Proto-Germanic *laką, *lakaz (“slackness”), from Proto-Germanic *lakaz (“limp, slack, loose, low”), related to *lak(k)ōną (“to blame, reproach”), from Proto-Indo-European *lok-néh₂-. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Lak (“lack”), Middle Low German lack, lak (“lack”), Dutch lak (“lack, deficiency, calumny”), Icelandic lakur (“lacking”). Related also to Middle Dutch laken (“to blame, lack”). Eclipsed non-native Middle English carence (“absence, lack”), from Old French carence.

Etymology 2

From Middle English lacken, lakken, laken, from Old English læccian, *lacian (“to blame, criticise, lack”), from Proto-West Germanic *lak(k)ōn (“to blame, be lacking”), from Proto-Germanic *lak(k)ōną (“to reproach, blame, be lacking”), from Proto-Indo-European *lok-néh₂-. Cognate with Old Frisian lakia, lekia (“to contest, blame”), Middle Low German lacken, laken (“to reproach, blame, criticise”), Middle Dutch laken (“to disapprove, blame, lack”), Dutch laken (“to blame, reproach”).

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