lack definition | Dictionary.com

lack

[lak]

–noun

1.	deficiency or absence of something needed, desirable, or customary: lack of money; lack of skill.

2.	something missing or needed: After he left, they really felt the lack.

–verb (used with object)

3.	to be without or deficient in: to lack ability; to lack the necessities of life.

4.	to fall short in respect of: He lacks three votes to win.

–verb (used without object)

5.	to be absent or missing, as something needed or desirable: Three votes are lacking to make a majority.

—Verb phrase

6.	lack in, to be short of or deficient in: What he lacks in brains, he makes up for in brawn.

Origin:
1125–75; ME lak; c. MLG lak, MD lac deficiency; akin to ON lakr deficient

Synonyms:
1. dearth, scarcity, paucity, deficit, insufficiency. 1, 3. want, need. 3. Lack, want, need, require as verbs all stress the absence of something desirable, important, or necessary. Lack means to be without or to have less than a desirable quantity of something: to lack courage, sufficient money, enough members to make a quorum. Want may imply some urgency in fulfilling a requirement or a desire: Willing workers are badly wanted. The room wants some final touch to make it homey. Need often suggests even more urgency than does want stressing the necessity of supplying what is lacking: to need an operation, better food, a match to light the fire. Require, which expresses necessity as strongly as need, occurs most frequently in serious or formal contexts: Your presence at the hearing is required. Successful experimentation requires careful attention to detail.

Antonyms:
1. surplus.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Link To lack

lack (lāk)

Deficiency or absence: Lack of funding brought the project to a halt.
A particular deficiency or absence: Owing to a lack of supporters, the reforms did not succeed.

v.   lacked, lack·ing, lacks

v.   tr.
To be without or in need of: lacked the strength to lift the box.
v.   intr.

To be missing or deficient: We suspected that he was lying, but proof was lacking.
To be in need of something: She does not lack for friends.

[Middle English, perhaps from Middle Dutch lac, deficiency, fault.]

Synonyms: These verbs mean to be without something, especially something that is necessary or desirable. Lack emphasizes the absence of something: She lacks the money to buy new shoes. The plant died because it lacked moisture.
Want and need stress the urgent necessity for filling a void or remedying an inadequacy: "Her pens were uniformly bad and wanted fixing" (Bret Harte). The garden needs care.

Usage Note: When lack is used intransitively, the present participle is generally followed by in: You will not be lacking in support from me. Other forms of the intransitive verb are most often followed by for: In the terrible, beautiful age of my prime,/I lacked for sweet linen but never for time (E.B. White).

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Lack

Lack\, n. [OE. lak; cf. D. lak slander, laken to blame, OHG. lahan, AS. le['a]n.]

1. Blame; cause of blame; fault; crime; offense. [Obs.] --Chaucer.

2. Deficiency; want; need; destitution; failure; as, a lack of sufficient food.

She swooneth now and now for lakke of blood. --Chaucer.

Let his lack of years be no impediment. --Shak.

Lack

Lack\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Lacked; p. pr. & vb. n. Lacking.]

1. To blame; to find fault with. [Obs.]

Love them and lakke them not. --Piers Plowman.

2. To be without or destitute of; to want; to need.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. --James i. 5.

Lack

Lack\, v. i. 1. To be wanting; often, impersonally, with of, meaning, to be less than, short, not quite, etc.

What hour now ? I think it lacks of twelve. --Shak.

Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty. --Gen. xvii. 28.

2. To be in want.

The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger. --Ps. xxxiv. 10.

Lack

Lack\, interj. [Cf. Alack.] Exclamation of regret or surprise. [Prov. Eng.] --Cowper.

Language Translation for : lack

Spanish: carecer de,

German: fehlen,

Japanese: ～がない

More Translations »

lack (n.)

c.1200, may have existed as unrecorded O.E. *lac, or been borrowed from M.Du. lak "deficiency, fault," from P.Gmc. *laka- (cf. O.N. lakr "lacking"). The verb is attested earlier, c.1175, but is considered to be from the noun. Lackluster first attested 1600 in "As You Like It." Combinations with lack- were frequent in 16c., e.g. lackland (1594), of a landless man; lack-Latin (c.1534), of an ignorant priest.

lack

sticky, resinous secretion of the tiny lac insect, Laccifer lacca, which is a species of scale insect. This insect deposits lac on the twigs and young branches of several varieties of soapberry and acacia trees and particularly on the sacred fig, Ficus religiosa, in India, Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The lac is harvested predominantly for the production of shellac (q.v.) and lac dye, a red dye widely used in India and other Asian countries. Forms of lac, including shellac, are the only commercial resins of animal origin

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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