lack
Plural: lacks
Noun
- the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable
- "there is a serious lack of insight into the problem"
- A deficiency or need (of something desirable or necessary); an absence, want, dearth.
- A defect or failing; moral or spiritual degeneracy.
- Archaic form of lakh.
Verb
Verb Forms: lacked, lacking, lacks
- To be without or deficient in something.
- be without
- "This soup lacks salt"
- To be without, not to have, to need, to require.
- To be short (of or for something).
- To be in want.
- To see the deficiency in (someone or something); to find fault with, to malign, reproach.
Examples
- He'll never lack for company while he's got all that money.
- I LACK a good strategy, which is why I’m losing this Words With Friends game.
- My life lacks excitement.
Origin / 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.
Synonyms
deficiency, miss, want, dearth, deficit, dejection, inadequacy, infrequency, insufficiency, lack, meagerness, nonsufficiency, paucity, penury, rareness, rarity, scantiness, scarcity, shortage, shortcoming, unsufficiency
Scrabble Score: 10
lack: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordlack: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
lack: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary