Lacking

//ˈlækɪŋ// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The absence of something that is desirable or otherwise ought to be present.

    "Cagliostro, however, whatever his moral lackings, did not lack spirit; he was not the man to succumb to this kind of coercion."

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of lack form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    Missing or not having enough of (a good quality, etc).

    "This cheese is lacking in pungency."

Adjective
  1. 1
    inadequate in amount or degree wordnet
  2. 2
    nonexistent wordnet

Example

More examples

"Great scholar as he is, he is lacking in common sense."

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.