n.
- Deficiency or absence: Lack of funding brought the project to a halt.
- A particular deficiency or absence: Owing to a lack of supporters, the reforms did not succeed.
v., lacked, lack·ing, lacks. v.tr.
To be without or in need of: lacked the strength to lift the box.
v.intr.
- To be missing or deficient: We suspected that he was lying, but proof was lacking.
- To be in need of something: She does not lack for friends.
[Middle English, perhaps from Middle Dutch lac, deficiency, fault.]
SYNONYMS lack, want, need. These verbs mean to be without something, especially something that is necessary or desirable. Lack emphasizes the absence of something: She lacks the money to buy new shoes. The plant died because it lacked moisture. Want and need stress the urgent necessity for filling a void or remedying an inadequacy: "Her pens were uniformly bad and wanted fixing" (Bret Harte). The garden needs care.
USAGE NOTE When lack is used intransitively, the present participle is generally followed by in: You will not be lacking in support from me. Other forms of the intransitive verb are most often followed by for: In the terrible, beautiful age of my prime,/I lacked for sweet linen but never for time (E.B. White).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
