LACK
Dictionary entry overview: What does lack mean?
• LACK (noun)
The noun LACK has 1 sense:
1. the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable
Familiarity information: LACK used as a noun is very rare.
• LACK (verb)
The verb LACK has 1 sense:
1. be without
Familiarity information: LACK used as a verb is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
• LACK (noun)
Meaning:
The state of needing something that is absent or unavailable
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Synonyms:
deficiency; lack; want
Context examples:
there is a serious lack of insight into the problem / water is the critical deficiency in desert regions / for want of a nail the shoe was lost
Hypernyms ("lack" is a kind of...):
demand; need (a condition requiring relief)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "lack"):
absence (the state of being absent)
dearth; famine; shortage (an acute insufficiency)
deficit (a deficiency or failure in neurological or mental functioning)
mineral deficiency (lack of a mineral micronutrient that is essential for normal nutrition or metabolism)
shortness (the condition of being short of something)
stringency; tightness (a state occasioned by scarcity of money and a shortage of credit)
• LACK (verb)
Meaning:
Be without
Classified under:
Verbs of being, having, spatial relations
Synonyms:
lack; miss
Context examples:
This soup lacks salt / There is something missing in my jewellery box!
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "lack"):
want (be without, lack; be deficient in)
exclude (lack or fail to include)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something
