Adjacent Words

Lack definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

LACK, v.t. [L. deliquium, which seems to be connected with linquo, to leave, to faint, and with liquo, to melt, liquid, etc.]
1. To want; to be destitute of; not to have or possess.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask it of God - James 1.
2. To blame. [Not in use.]
LACK, v.i.
1. To be in want.
The young lions do lack and suffer hunger. Psalms 34.
2. To be wanting.
Perhaps there shall lack five of the fifty righteous.
Genesis 18.
LACK, n. Want; destitution; need; failure.
He that gathered little, had no lack. Exodus 14.
Lack of rupees is one hundred thousand rupees, which at 55 cents each, amount to fifty five thousand dollars, or at 1 Samuel 6d. sterling, to 12,500 pounds.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable; "there is a serious lack of insight into the problem"; "water is the critical deficiency in desert regions"; "for want of a nail the shoe was lost" [syn: lack, deficiency, want] v
1: be without; "This soup lacks salt"; "There is something missing in my jewelry box!" [syn: miss, lack] [ant: feature, have]

Merriam Webster's

I. Date: 13th century intransitive verb 1. to be deficient or missing <time is lacking for a full explanation> 2. to be short or have need of something <he will not lack for advisers> transitive verb to stand in need of ; suffer from the absence or deficiency of <lack the necessities of life> II. noun Etymology: Middle English lak; akin to Middle Dutch lak lack, Old Norse lakr defective Date: 14th century 1. the fact or state of being wanting or deficient <a lack of evidence> 2. something that is lacking or is needed

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. (usu. foll. by of) an absence, want, or deficiency (a lack of talent; felt the lack of warmth). --v.tr. be without or deficient in (lacks courage). Phrases and idioms: for lack of owing to the absence of (went hungry for lack of money). lack for lack. Etymology: ME lac, lacen, corresp. to MDu., MLG lak deficiency, MDu. laken to lack

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Lac Lac, Lakh Lakh, n. [Hind. lak, l[=a]kh, l[=a]ksh, Skr. laksha a mark, sign, lakh.] One hundred thousand; also, a vaguely great number; as, a lac of rupees. [Written also lack.] [East Indies]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

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.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

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.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

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.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

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

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(lacks, lacking, lacked) Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. 1. If there is a lack of something, there is not enough of it or it does not exist at all. Despite his lack of experience, he got the job... The charges were dropped for lack of evidence... There is a lack of people wanting to start up new businesses. N-UNCOUNT: also a N, usu N of n 2. If you say that someone or something lacks a particular quality or that a particular quality is lacking in them, you mean that they do not have any or enough of it. He lacked the judgment and political acumen for the post of chairman... Certain vital information is lacking in the report. VERB: V n, V 3. see also lacking 4. If you say there is no lack of something, you are emphasizing that there is a great deal of it. He said there was no lack of things for them to talk about... PHRASE: PHR n, usu v-link PHR, v PHR [emphasis]

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

(forms of chacer, "to lack," ayin, "nought"): This word in its various forms has the usual meaning of "want," "need," "deficiency." There is but little change in the use of the word in the different versions. Sometimes one of the common synonyms is exchanged for the word itself, e.g. in the Old Testament, 1Sa 21:15 the Revised Version (British and American) has "lack" ("Do I lack madmen?") where the King James Version has "need of"; Pr 5:23, "for lack," instead of "without"; 6:32, "void of" for "lacketh"; 10:21, "lack" for "want"; 31:11, "lack" for "need"; Isa 59:15, "lacking" for "faileth." In the New Testament "lack" is the translation of hustereo, literally, "to be behind," and endees, "in want." In Lu 8:6, the Revised Version (British and American) reads "had no" instead of "lacked" in the King James Version. In 2Co 11:9, the Revised Version gives "my want" for "which was lacking to me" in the King James Version; in Col 1:24 "that which is lacking" for "that which is behind"; Jas 2:15 "lack" for "destitute." It will readily be seen that sometimes the slight variation helps to explain the meaning.

G. H. Gerberding

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. v. a. Want, need, be in want of, be in need of, be destitute of, be without. II. v. n. 1. Be in want. 2. Be wanting. III. n. Need, deficiency, destitution, want, scantiness, insufficiency, scarcity, dearth, default, defectiveness, shortness, shortcoming, deficit.

Moby Thesaurus

absence, adulteration, arrearage, awayness, bare cupboard, bare subsistence, be found wanting, be in want, be insufficient, be pinched, be poor, beggarliness, beggary, blank, break, collapse, come short, dearth, decline, defalcation, default, defect, defectibility, defectiveness, deficiency, deficit, deprivation, destitution, discontinuity, drought, empty purse, erroneousness, fail, fail of, fall away, fall short, fall shy, fallibility, famine, faultiness, gap, go on welfare, grinding poverty, gripe, hand-to-mouth existence, hiatus, homelessness, immaturity, impairment, imperfection, impoverishment, impurity, inaccuracy, inadequacy, inadequateness, incompleteness, indigence, inexactitude, inexactness, insufficiency, interval, kick the beam, lacuna, lag, lose ground, mediocrity, mendicancy, miss, missing link, moneylessness, necessitousness, necessity, need, neediness, neverness, nonexistence, nonoccurrence, nonpresence, not answer, not hack it, not make it, not make out, not measure up, not qualify, not stretch, not suffice, nowhereness, omission, outage, patchiness, paucity, pauperism, pauperization, penury, pinch, privation, require, run short, run short of, scantiness, scarcity, shortage, shortcoming, shortfall, sketchiness, slump, starvation, starve, stop short, subtraction, ullage, underage, undevelopment, unevenness, unperfectedness, unsoundness, want, wantage