- the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable
"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"

- be without
"This soup lacks salt"
"There is something missing in my jewellery box!"

1. Blame; cause of blame; fault; crime; offense. [Obs.] Chaucer.

2. Deficiency; want; need; destitution; failure; as, a lack of sufficient food.

"She swooneth now and now for lakke of blood." -- Chaucer.

"Let his lack of years be no impediment." -- Shak.

1. To blame; to find fault with. [Obs.]

"Love them and lakke them not." -- Piers Plowman.

2. To be without or destitute of; to want; to need.

"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God." -- James i. 5.

1. To be wanting; often, impersonally, with of, meaning, to be less than, short, not quite, etc.

"What hour now ? I think it lacks of twelve." -- Shak.

"Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty." -- Gen. xvii. 28.

2. To be in want.

"The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger." -- Ps. xxxiv. 10.

1. Exclamation of regret or surprise. [Prov. Eng.] Cowper.