Lack
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /lak/
- US IPA: /læk/
- Rhymes: -æk
Full definition of lack
Noun
lack
(plural lacks)- (obsolete) A defect or failing; moral or spiritual degeneracy.
- 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 1, 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.
- A deficiency or need (of something desirable or necessary); an absence, want.
- ShakespeareLet his lack of years be no impediment.
- 1994, Green Day, Basket Case (song)I went to a shrink, to analyze my dreams. He said it's lack of sex that's bringing me down.''
- 2012, September 7, Phil McNulty, Moldova 0-5 England, 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.
Verb
- (transitive) To be without, to need, to require.My life lacks excitement.
- (intransitive) To be short (of or for something).He'll never lack for company while he's got all that money.
- ShakespeareWhat hour now? I think it lacks of twelve.
- (intransitive) To be in want.
- Bible, Psalms xxxiv. 10The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger.