lack

1. 1.

   be without

   “This soup lacks salt”

   “There is something missing in my jewelry box!”

   Synonymsmiss

   Narrowerwantexclude

Other forms of lack

plural

lacks·

past tense

lacked·

present participle

lacking·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about lack

What does lack mean?

lack means "the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in lack?

lack has 1 syllable: lack. In IPA it is /ˈlæk/.

What is another word for lack?

Close synonyms include deficiency, want, miss. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is lack a common word?

lack is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with lack?

4 words rhyme with lack. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.