1. Deficiency or absence: Lack of funding brought the project to a halt.2. A particular deficiency or absence: Owing to a lack of supporters, the reforms did not succeed.
VERB:
Inflected forms: lacked, lack·ing, lacks
TRANSITIVE VERB:
To be without or in need of: lacked the strength to lift the box.
INTRANSITIVE VERB:
1. To be missing or deficient: We suspected that he was lying, but proof was lacking.2. To be in need of something: She does not lack for friends.
ETYMOLOGY:
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).
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