lack

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable

   there is a serious lack of insight into the problem

2. 2
   verb

   be without

   This soup lacks salt

3. 3
   noun

   A deficiency or need (of something desirable or necessary); an absence, want, dearth.

   […] let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation;

4. 4
   noun

   A defect or failing; moral or spiritual degeneracy.

   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.

5. 5
   verb

   To be without, not to have, to need, to require.

   My life lacks excitement.

6. 6
   verb

   To be short (of or for something).

   He'll never lack for company while he's got all that money.

7. 7
   verb

   To be in want.

   The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger […]

8. 8
   verb

   To see the deficiency in (someone or something); to find fault with, to malign, reproach.

   That is Mede þe Mayde quod she · hath noyed me ful oft / And ylakked my lemman.

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…