lack
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /læk/
homophone: lakh (one pronunciation)
rhymes: -æk
Forms: form: lacks
Etymology: 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.
Senses: examples: text: […] let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation;
ref: c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
text: I went to a shrink, to analyze my dreams. He said it's lack of sex that's bringing me down.
ref: 1994, Green Day, “Basket Case”:
text: If Moldova harboured even the slightest hopes of pulling off a comeback that would have bordered on miraculous given their lack of quality, they were snuffed out 13 minutes before the break when Oxlade-Chamberlain picked his way through midfield before releasing Defoe for a finish that should have been dealt with more convincingly by Namasco at his near post.
ref: 2012 September 7, Phil McNulty, “Moldova 0-5 England”, in BBC Sport:
text: More flak was aimed at the Treasury's apparent lack of marketing skills, when it was argued that its idea of how to sell tickets was along the lines of "you can get two tickets for the price of two", and it lacks the sales and promotional skills of the train operating companies which are needed to boost revenue.
ref: 2022 January 12, Tom Allett, “Network News: MPs concerned at Treasury's influence on rail industry”, in RAIL, number 948, page 13:
synonyms: paucity
antonyms: glut
surplus
plethora
glosses: A deficiency or need (of something desirable or necessary); an absence, want, dearth.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
glosses: A defect or failing; moral or spiritual degeneracy.
Synonyms: word: dearth
word: deficiency
word: deficit
word: dejection
word: inadequacy
word: infrequency
word: insufficiency
word: meagerness
word: nonsufficiency
word: lack
word: paucity
word: penury
word: rareness
word: rarity
word: scantiness
word: scarcity
word: shortage
word: shortcoming
word: unsufficiency
word: want
Hyponyms: word: apathy
word: cowardice
word: poverty
Derived terms: for lack of
for lack of trying
lackless
lack of sleep
Related terms: word: abundant