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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Deficiency or absence: Lack of funding brought the project to a halt.
  2. n. A particular deficiency or absence: Owing to a lack of supporters, the reforms did not succeed.
  3. v. To be without or in need of: lacked the strength to lift the box.
  4. v. To be missing or deficient: We suspected that he was lying, but proof was lacking.
  5. v. To be in need of something: She does not lack for friends.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Want or deficiency of something requisite or desirable; defect; failure; need.
  2. n. Want of presence; a state of being away; absence.
  3. n. A want; defect; a blemish; especially, a moral defect; a fault in character.
  4. n. A fault committed; an offense; a censurable act.
  5. n. Blame; reproach; rebuke; censure.
  6. To be wanting or deficient; come short; fail.
  7. To be absent or away; be missing.
  8. To be in want; suffer need.
  9. To be wanting to; fail.
  10. To be in want of; stand in need of; want; be without; be destitute of; fail to have or to possess. The direct object in this construction was formerly the subject, what is now the subject (nominative) being originally in the dative.
  11. To suffer the absence of; feel the deprivation of; miss.
  12. To blame; reproach; speak in detraction of.
  13. To beat. Also lacky.
  14. Synonyms Lack, Need, Want. These words have come to overlap each other a good deal by figurative extension, and have considerable variety of peculiar idiomatic use. To lack is primarily and generally to be without, that which is lacked being generally some one thing, and a thing which is desirable, although generally not necessary or very important.
  15. To pierce the hull of with shot.
  16. See lac.
  17. To lacquer; treat with lac.
  18. Used in the exclamatory phrase Good lack. See good.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A defect or failing; moral or spiritual degeneracy.
  2. n. A deficiency or need (of something desirable or necessary); an absence, want.
  3. v. To be without, to need, to require.
  4. v. To be short (of or for something).

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Blame; cause of blame; fault; crime; offense.
  2. n. Deficiency; want; need; destitution; failure.
  3. v. To blame; to find fault with.
  4. v. To be without or destitute of; to want; to need.
  5. v. To be wanting; often, impersonally, with of, meaning, to be less than, short, not quite, etc.
  6. v. To be in want.
  7. interj. Exclamation of regret or surprise.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable
  2. v. be without

Etymologies

  1. Middle English, perhaps from Middle Dutch lac, deficiency, fault.

Examples

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‘lack’ has been looked up 2022 times, loved by 1 person, added to 15 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 10.