Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Lack   /læk/   Listen
Lack

noun
1.
The state of needing something that is absent or unavailable.  Synonyms: deficiency, want.  "Water is the critical deficiency in desert regions" , "For want of a nail the shoe was lost"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Lack" Quotes from Famous Books



... been softening and his range widening. As a poet he stands somewhere between Burns and Cowper, akin to the former in patriotic glow, and to the latter in intensity of religious anxiety verging sometimes on morbidness. His humanity, if it lack the humorous breadth of the one, has all the tenderness of the other. In love of outward nature he yields to neither. His delight in it is not a new sentiment or a literary tradition, but the genuine passion of a man born and bred in the country, who has not merely a visiting acquaintance with ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... from Latin or Greek lack this intermediate experience, though the study of their original meanings is full of surprises. This, however, is merely a question of opening a Latin or Greek dictionary, if we have not time for the moment's reflexion which would serve the same purpose. Thus, to take a dozen examples at random, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... is a lack of scientific precision in the structure of your sentences. A young married woman ought really to be more accurate. Now let's look it over, and do a little considering. I gather, in the first place, that my son-in-law's nerves going away was, or ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... painter had once upon a time received an order to make a copy of a Holbein for Baron Siegmund von Auffenberg. He never finished the picture, owing to lack of ability; but he had become acquainted with Baron Eberhard, and years later, having met him quite accidentally, took him to the Paradise, where the infamous brethren were then in the habit ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... Pierre! The courtiers have cried her up and cried her up, till your pretty savage of the north sea is like to become the first lady of the land! Sir John comes home with your letter to me—boy, the smelling-salts!—so!—and I say to him, 'Sir John, take the story to His Royal Highness!' Good lack, Pierre, no sooner hath the Duke of York heard the tale than off he goes with it to King Charles! His Majesty hath an eye for a pretty baggage. Oh, I promise you, Pierre, you have ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... made and my babies' faces washed and had gone to school and come home and had washed their faces again and darned their stockings and mended Freddie Perkins's trousers (he tore them every day of his life) and learned my lessons in between—I was ready to go to bed, and I didn't notice any lack of social intercourse. But after two years in a conversational college, I do miss it; and I shall be glad to see somebody ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster

... to excuse me and my lack of ceremony if I bid you good morning, and take French leave. I feel that I ought to get on my way as soon as possible; and believe me I am very grateful ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... were a few stupid ones who had very little brains to be proud of; so they used to try and make up for the lack by telling us about such things; but we reckoned a good essay writer worth a good deal ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... on high that badge, surmounted with the golden head of an ass, and jingling with bells. "How now, friend Wry-mouth? 'Tis long since thou wert here! This house hath well-nigh been forced to its ghostly weapons for lack of thy substantial ones. Where hast ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... usually appreciates the fact that the building of the fireplaces is liable more than any other part of the house to be taken into the mason's own hands with, if he is not watched, disastrous results. Undoubtedly every mason would resent most strongly any insinuation as to his lack of knowledge regarding fireplace construction. Each mason not only thinks that he knows how a fireplace should be built, but it is almost as general a rule that he feels that his particular method is the only ...
— Making a Fireplace • Henry H. Saylor

... now enter on a subject of profound interest. I had often spoken to Hannah More of S. T. Coleridge, and proceeded with him, one morning to Barley Wood, her residence, eleven miles from Bristol. The interview was mutually agreeable, nor was there any lack of conversation; but I was struck with something singular in Mr. Coleridge's eye. I expressed to a friend, the next day, my concern at having beheld him, during his visit to Hannah More, so extremely paralytic, his hands shaking to an alarming degree, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... within the soul, the instant real thinking begins. "As you value your peace of mind, stop all scrutiny into your personal character," is the advice of what Milton denominates "the sty of Epicurus." The discouraging religious condition of the present age is due to the great lack, not merely in the lower but the higher classes, of calm, clear self-intelligence. Men do not know themselves. The Delphic oracle was never less obeyed than now, in this vortex of mechanical arts and luxury. For this reason, it is desirable that the religious teacher dwell consecutively ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... that metal dissolves readily in the presence of most aqueous solutions when electrolytic differences of potential exist. The length of the cables enables them to connect between points of considerable difference of potential. It is lack of this length which prevents electrolytic damage to masses of structural metal ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller

... calf has been constant, and at the time these samples were milked the mother gave as freely to her babe as she ever had since its birth. The calf having gained seven to eight hundred pounds on a milk diet in one year, it is presumable that it had no lack of nourishment. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... hearkening to this lewd tirade, I marvelled I should ever have feared and trembled because of the womanhood of creature so coarse and unsexed. Thus she continued alternately mocking at and reviling me until she must needs pause for lack of breath; then I turned to look at her and stood amazed to behold that passionate head bowed upon ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... returned quietly to his piano and played voluntaries for them. The other men played game after game, flinging themselves boldly into the adventure. They drank the health of the Queen of Hearts and of the Queen of Diamonds. Jimmy felt obscurely the lack of an audience: the wit was flashing. Play ran very high and paper began to pass. Jimmy did not know exactly who was winning but he knew that he was losing. But it was his own fault for he frequently mistook his cards and the other men had to calculate his I.O.U.'s for him. They were devils of ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... like him in every profession—the arts are crowded with them. He had met barristers and soldiers and clergy-men, just like himself. One hears of their deaths—failure of the heart's action, paralysis of the brain, a hundred other medical causes—but the real cause is, lack of appreciation. ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore

... covering for his and his family's naked bodies, and nothing to eat but snakes and grubs and 'offal. This would be a hell to him; and if he had any wisdom he would know that his own civilization is a hell to the savage—but he hasn't any, and has never had any; and for lack of it he shut up those poor natives in the unimaginable perdition of his civilization, committing his crime with the very best intentions, and saw those poor creatures waste away under his tortures; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... us: "Of self-evident truths so dealt with, the one which here concerns us is that a creature must live before it can act ... Ethics has to recognize the truth that egoism comes before altruism." This is true for ANIMALS, because animals die out from lack of food when their natural supply of it is insufficient because they have NOT THE CAPACITY TO PRODUCE ARTIFICIALLY. But it is not ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... Perfecta, looking at her nephew. "Well, she was saying that, as a man accustomed to the luxuries and the etiquette of the capital and to foreign ways, you would not be able to put up with the somewhat rustic simplicity and the lack of ceremony of our manner of life; for here ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... not merely saunter to the post-office and drop it into the box. The cautious correspondent first went into the shop and explained to Lizzie how matters stood. She kept what she called a bookseller's shop as well as the post-office; but the supply of books corresponded exactly to the lack of demand for them, and her chief trade was in nicknacks, from marbles and money-boxes up to concertinas. If he found the postmistress in an amiable mood, which was only now and then, the caller led up craftily to the object of his visit. Having discussed the weather and the potato-disease, ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... that he had never seen so many women listen with such intensity, and lack of self-consciousness. He had seen only two pat their hair, only one glance at her glittering rings, only three arrange the skirts of their gowns while the lecture was in progress. Sometimes during his sermons, he felt ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... broke in panic and fled like sheep. I argue from this that they had undergone no real transformation as yet; that at bottom they were still under the spell of a timorousness born of generations of unsuccess, and a lack of confidence in each other and in their leaders born of old and bitter experience in the way of treacheries of all sorts—for their kings had been treacherous to their great vassals and to their generals, and these in turn were treacherous to the head of the state ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... I do not the honour of my poor apartment so pressingly as some," he said, "it is out of no lack of respect, Messer Syndic. But because, having had much experience of visitors, I know that nothing fits them so well as to be left at liberty, nothing irks them so much as to be over-pressed. Here now I have some things ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... the office, or when he was entering another person's house, he had a purely mechanical habit of moistening his fingers at his lips, and rubbing the lapels of his coat. This was the sole relic of "the exquisite Soeren's" exquisiteness—like one of the rudimentary organs, dwindled through lack of use, which ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland

... no lack of these, since he was a man of indomitable energy, matured his plans with astonishing rapidity, and often had them carried out before any one suspected they ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon

... With the arrival of winter the troops on either side proceeded to secure what comfort they could by all manner of clever and unique devices. Winter clothing was provided as far as possible, but on both sides there was inevitable suffering for lack of suitable supplies for the winter campaign, and individual initiative had frequently to supply the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... appears to lack the mathematical element. It is doubtful how far they can compute numbers. The Chippewas count decimally, and after ten, add the names of the digits to the word ten, up to twenty; then take the word for twenty, and add ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... supplied the lack of personal intercourse: Theodora did not write with ease, and Violet could not pour herself out without reciprocity; so that though there was a correspondence, it languished, and their intimacy seemed ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... duty of the State to provide for the sustenance and support of those of its citizens who cannot procure sustenance themselves"; and again, "work adapted to their strength and capacity shall be supplied to those who lack means and opportunity of earning a livelihood for themselves and those dependent ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... Secondly, we have an invitation to come to this faithful God for wisdom to assist and help. For after he had said, "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations—and let patience have her perfect work"; he adds, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him" (James 1:2-5). Here is more than an invitation, here is a promise—it shall be given him; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Chinese concessions were regarded as inadequate, hostilities continued; the British entered the Yangtze estuary and threatened Nanking. In this first armed conflict with the West, China found herself defenceless owing to her lack of a navy, and it was also found that the European weapons were far superior to those of the Chinese. In 1842 China was compelled to capitulate: under the Treaty of Nanking Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain, ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... The lack of the more strenuous forms of active service excitement during the digging of this trench was more than made up for in the week following—when it was manned nightly in full strength, in spite of severe bombardment by ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various

... read the poem to his parents, upon its conclusion, both were much impressed by it, though his father made severe strictures upon its lack of polish, its terminal inconcision, and its vagueness of thought. That he was not more severe was accepted by his son as high praise. The author had, however, little hope of seeing it in print. Mr. Browning was not anxious ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... analyze a particular phase of his subject; at other times he appears to be ridiculing the whole institution of marriage. If this be not the case, then he would seem unfitted for his task—through the ignorance of a bachelor—and adds to error the element of slander. He is at fault through lack of intimate experience. And yet the flashes of keen penetration preclude such a charge as this. A few bold touches of his pen, and a picture is drawn which glows with convincing reality. While here and there occur paragraphs of powerful description or searching ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... the fondness of the old-time Puritans for Scripture names, so Hawthorne was chosen by him as expressive of one of the most beautiful features of the New England landscape. The merits of the book were too genuine, however, for it to lack admirers, and the small class which greeted its first appearance with delight gradually increased, and finally the demand for the book became so great that in 1842 Hawthorne ventured to issue a second series of "Twice-Told Tales," the most of which had appeared ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... fury of his gullet and groin, and think how many fires, how many kitchens, cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands; what orchards, stews, ponds and parks, coops and garners, he could spare; what velvets, tissues, embroideries, laces, he could lack; and then how short and uncertain his life is; he were in a better way to happiness than to live the emperor of these delights, and be the dictator of fashions; but we make ourselves slaves to our pleasures, and we serve ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... singing of hymns, and sermonizing are pernicious—they teach us to rely on some supernatural power, when we ought to rely on ourselves. I TEEtotally disbelieve in a God. The God-idea was begotten in ignorance, fear, and a general lack of any knowledge of Nature. If I were to die now, being in a healthy condition for my age, both mentally and physically, I would just as lief, yes, rather, die with a hearty enjoyment of music, sport, or ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... I suppose, the bones that were strewn along that ground will still be being turned up by plows. The generations to come who live there will never lack relics of the battle, and of the fighting that preceded and followed it. They will find bones, and shell cases, and bits of metal of all sorts. Rusty bayonets will be turned up by their plowshares; strange coins, as puzzling ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... ways, compared to those of Terra, the industries of Tepokt were underdeveloped. In the first place, the population was smaller and had different standards of luxury. In the second, a certain lack of drive resulted from the inability to break out into interplanetary space. Kinton had been inexplicably lucky to have reached the surface even in a battered hulk. The shell of meteorites was at least a hundred miles thick and ...
— Exile • Horace Brown Fyfe

... of them. Rosy had imagined a function of the first magnitude, and it was not to dwindle for mere lack of material. She had determined upon a ceremony in church and a large reception at the house, with everything in the way of music, flowers, functionaries, and supernumeraries that the most approved forms could incorporate. She stood out for a bishop, a surpliced ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... not overcareful to prevent the marriage of persons who are mentally defective. There is among the several states no agreement as to the legal age of marriage, and no agreement as to the relationship within which marriage is forbidden. Hasty unions have been encouraged by the lack of solemnity which characterizes civil marriage. Marriage is more and more a civil contract, devoid of religious sanctions and spiritual associations. Many consider marriage as a civil relation not radically different from any other ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... water that day. She suffered from the lack of it, but hunger appeared to have left her. Her strength diminished, yet she walked and plodded miles on miles, always gazing both hopelessly and hopefully along ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... and by the absence of provision for munitions, without which sending masses of men into battle was sending them to useless slaughter. Time was needed to remedy these miscalculations, but time was provided by our command of the sea, about which there had been no misjudgment and no lack of pre-vision. We made our mistakes before, and during the war, but neither Mr. Asquith's Governments nor that of his successor need fear comparison with those of our Allies or our enemies on that ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... reasonably certain that for many centuries there was no lack of intercourse and interchange of commodities and ideas between Crete and Asia; indeed, it is beginning to be more and more manifest that in that ancient world there was infinitely more intercommunication between the different peoples than had been suspected. Far from the prehistoric age being ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... hearts of us all. One who had seen him, as I did, stand uncovered in the presence of his new Washington hand-press, the day that dynamo of Light was erected in the Argus office, could never suppose him to lack humanity or the just reverence demanded by ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... advancing the money to pay for the land, they would be seriously hampered in the search for the horses, and when they were obliged to give up the small amount which they had left, to the constable at Sawyer, it seemed certain that they would travel under many disadvantages. But this very lack of money had aided them. If they had had sufficient to pay for their lodging at the hotel at Babcock, the chances are that Bob would have remembered that the carriage needed oiling; they would not ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis

... These hands did recompense; they did thy deed. He disobey's me; I forbore to save; I left him at the portal of the grave: Firm loyalty hath well that breach repair'd— He loves me still, nor shall he lack reward. 'Barons! your court its judgment did decree, Quittance or death, your queen compar'd with me: Behold the mistress of the knight is come, Now judge between us? and ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... with all this grandeur, with all these lackeys and attentions and environs? Who can say? Sometimes she longed for the freedom and lack-care of her Dresden garret, her musician friends, the studios, the crash and glitter of the opera. To be suddenly deprived of the fruits of ambition, to reach such a pinnacle without striving, to be no longer independent, somehow it was all tasteless ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... 'Tis through lack that she her blisses buyeth; Sorrow's dream comes true by longing long; Lest light break the sleep wherein she lieth, Round her tree of life the ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... which were added later four more called Plagal Modes. These modes, called Phrygian, Dorian, Lydian, etc., are merely different presentations in the regular order of the notes of the C Major scale—first, with D as the initial or tonic note, then with E et seq. They lack the sentiment of a leading seventh note. In these weird keys Plain Song was conceived for psalms, graduals, introits, and other offices of the primitive church. Such music was generally called Gregorian, because St. Gregory, Pope of Rome in the seventh century, collected and codified ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens

... to America, or to the towns. A fresh census should be taken and kept up to date, the wants of each man noted, and a definite attempt made now to earmark sites and material for building, to provide the garden plots, and plan the best and prettiest type of cottage. For lack of labour and material no substantial progress can be made with housing while the war is on, but if a man can see his cottage and his ground ready, in the air, he will wait; if he cannot, he will be off, and we shall have lost ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... finished dinner, she rose restlessly from the table and looked at me with a hesitating air. I smiled back at her, but it hurt me inwardly this want of confidence, this lack of familiarity she seemed to have. This sort of hesitation before she made the simplest request, the start and flush when I spoke suddenly to her, this timidity of me now, hurt and puzzled me. I, who had taught my dog ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... fables. When the duchess was allowed to return to Paris she took La Fontaine with her, and he was at once introduced into the most brilliant society. The duchess of Mazarin, sister to the duchess of Bouillon, was also his warm friend; and with the friendship of the two sisters he had no lack of attention. He became acquainted with Moliere, Boileau, and Racine, and was warmly attached to them ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... to him; but he foresaw an opportunity to have Grace all to himself, and he meant to improve it. He also wished leisure to think over some plan for getting rid of Senor Freeman, in whom he scented a rival, and who, whether a rival or not, had behaved to him with a lack of consideration in ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne

... found extremely practicable for making not only very palatable but thoroughly wholesome dishes; and are earnestly recommended to young housewives, who err through ignorance, as a rule, rather than because of carelessness or of lack of good materials. It has often been said that the road to a man's heart lies through his stomach. It would not be surprising to learn that this aphorism fell first from the lips of some wise woman who had observed that in ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... gave his army a splendid festival. Of unrivalled activity, and, Mohammedan only in name, he himself led the chorus in the Pyrrhic and Klephtic dances, the ceremonials of warriors and of robbers. There was no lack of wine, of sheep, goats, and lambs roasted before enormous fires; made of the debris of the ruined city; antique games of archery and wrestling were celebrated, and the victors received their prizes from the hand of ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... in love with Rhett Sempland. That is to say, she had not yet realized it; perhaps better, she had not yet admitted the existence of a reciprocal passion in her own breast to that she had long since learned had sprung up in his. By just that lack of admission she was stronger than he ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... well-lighted, and perfectly ventilated factory in a situation which affords pure air and accessibility to the homes of employees. In England and Germany the advance towards this ideal has taken form in the "garden cities'' of which the plant is the nucleus and the support. In America there is no lack of industrial towns planned and built as carefully as the works to which they ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... Brassfield state of mind: thus one might find an anodyne for this sense of insignificance. For, to those others, of course, wealth and social position were the important things in life, magnificently making up for the lack of other qualities. If they had artistic enthusiasms, it was because they regarded the arts as did the Roman conquerors—as elements created for no other reason than to enhance their triumphs. Debussy, she suggested, had been born to give them a cause for displaying their jewels ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... marked the beginning of a distinct revolution in the art of making shoes by machinery. Matzeliger realized this, and attempted to capitalize it by organizing a stock company to market his invention; but his plans were frustrated through failing health and lack of business experience, and shortly thereafter, at the age of 36, he ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker

... in the United States you think Jupiter a remarkably great man, and Apollo a musician, and Mercury a gentleman of some business capacity, but we Greeks know better. And as for the ladies—hum—well, your Excellency, they are not received. They are too bold and pushing. They lack the refinements, and as for ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... Zeno, with your curious canine name, You shall never lack for plaudits in the golden hall of fame, For you fought as well with galleys as you did with burly men, And your deeds of daring seamanship are writ by many a pen. From sodden, gray Chioggia the singing Gondoliers, Repeat in silvery cadence the story of your years, ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... answer. She was biting her lips to keep back the tears. She felt that somehow she had failed; that Art Osgood was slipping through her fingers, in spite of the fact that he did not seem to fear her or to oppose her except in the final accusation. It was the lack of opposition, that lack of fear, that baffled her so. Art, she felt dimly, must be very sure of his own position; was it because he was so close to the Mexican line? Jean glanced desperately that way. It was very close. She could see the features of the Mexican soldiers lounging ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... some of which could carry eighty men. During the deplorable armistice, as General Sheaffe is aware"—looking at that officer—"Van Rensselaer brought up 400 boats and batteaux from Ogdensburg and other points, all of his previously blockaded fleet, so the enemy has no lack of transport. The most effective disposition of our limited force is, I admit, somewhat of a problem. There is no use in evading the fact that in point of numbers and ordnance we are too weak, and as Sir George ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... a canal. But on this night the still surface was destined to be ruffled—on this night, so strange, so extraordinary an adventure was destined to happen to him, that it actually compensated, in five brief hours, for all the lack of excitement in those ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... busy thoughts concerning means for rising in the air, and when Joseph returned from Avignon, they set to work with stronger hope of realising their dreams. As they were the largest and best paper-makers in Annonay, they did not lack material for carrying on experiments, and when these experiments had repeatedly resulted in success, they decided that the rest of the world should be admitted into their secret. A large balloon, made of paper and taffeta, should be inflated ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... the jury, mark the evidence of Delta:—'He robbed me of endelecheia, which he claimed, quite illegally, as entelecheia.' Mark Theta beating his breast and plucking out his hair in grief for the loss of kolokunthh. And Zeta mourns for surizein and salpizein—nay, cannot mourn, for lack of his gryzein. What tolerance is possible, what penalty adequate, for this ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... to beat down her jealousy. She prayed. She lay for hours at night struggling with her sins. If Martin had been worthy, if he had shown love in return, but, from the bottom of her soul, as the days increased she despised him—despised him for his light heart, his care of worldly things, his utter lack of comprehension of their father, his scorn, even now but badly concealed, of all the sanctities that ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... my lover, the great judge. He was charming. He had that charm of manner which you English lack. Faithful? I do not know. Often we were together, and often we wrote letters when to meet was impossible. He kept my letters—they amused him so, he said—they were so French, so piquant, so different to English ladies' letters. Alas, monsieur, ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... the easy: one, that pretends to be sublime, proves bombastical: he who is too cautious and fearful of the storm, crawls along the ground: he who wants to vary his subject in a marvelous manner, paints the dolphin in the woods, the boar in the sea. The avoiding of an error leads to a fault, if it lack skill. ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... von Schoen then intrenched himself behind his lack of instructions in this respect, and I told him that in these conditions I did not feel myself in a position to take any ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... ordeal really rejuvenated and reinvigorated. It has been said that our constitution has now become too democratic, and that a University should be ruled by a Senatus rather than by a Juventus. This is true to a certain extent. There has been too much unrest, too constant changes, and a lack of continuity in the studies and in the government of the University. Every three years a new wave of young masters came in, carried a reform in the system of teaching and examining, and then left to make room for a new wave which brought new ideas, before the old ones had ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... there were long winter evenings when the wind blew, whistling drearily through the leafless trees, and all around they saw nothing but the bare monotony of ploughed fields; and there was poverty, and there was lack of any work that seemed to matter; every kink in their characters had free play; there was nothing to restrain them; they grew narrow and eccentric: Philip knew all this, but in his young intolerance he did not offer it as an excuse. He shivered at the thought ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... flushed cheek, a kindling eye, and something like a song of victory singing low and strong in his heart. It was a strange mood to follow such an interview, for there was scarcely a sentence of his during the talk with Katrine of which he was not ashamed. The lack of taste, of delicacy, the rawness of his conduct came back to him, producing a singular sense of elation; for by them he realized that his love was a thing stronger than himself; a thing which carried him along with it; ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane

... to the oak region; and here you have clumps, open glades, rows, single trees of umbrageous form, presenting an exact copy of English park scenery. There is no running water, unfortunately, but the meadows and little prairies that lie ensconced within the woods, shew no signs of suffering from lack of water. The nights bring heavy dews, and there are occasional rains, which keep them fresh and green. I am told that in September rains fall which renew the face of nature so suddenly, that it assumes the garb of spring, the flowers even coming out. The winter is a little ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne

... proved a very sociable affair, and Bernard Longueville perceived that he should not lack opportunity for the exercise of those gifts of intelligence to which Gordon Wright had appealed. The two friends took long walks through the woods and over the mountains, and they mingled with human life in the crowded precincts ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... often been compared with Chatterton and has owed much of his fame to the unfounded legend that he was a child of genius brought to an untimely death by poverty and lack of recognition. His satires on the vices of his time enjoyed a temporary reputation, but his real legacy to posterity is the well-known lines ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... diversity of dishes, and the author of "Piers of Fulham" complains, that men were no longer satisfied with brawn and powdered beef, which he terms "store of house," but would have venison, wild fowl, and heronshaw; and men of simple estate, says he, will have partridges and plovers, when lords lack. ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... lesson was brought home to me when exasperated by the seeming laziness of the coolie cultivators, I would seize a man's hoe and fly at the work, hoe vigorously for perhaps five minutes, swear at the man for his lack of strenuousness, then retire and find myself puffing and blowing and almost in a ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... at each other in awed amazement. Nothing just like this had ever come to their knowledge before. The healthy desire of a vigorous appetite for food was one thing; but this child's whimpering need and its mother's patient endurance of her own lack of food for nearly twenty-four hours, ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... receive the punishment which is his due. The righteous man often has troubles all his life no matter how careful he is to avoid them, and correspondingly the same is true of the wicked, that he is prosperous, despite his lack of caution and good sense. To avoid these objections as Eliphaz does by saying that if the wicked man himself is not punished, his children will be, is to go from the frying pan into the fire. For it is not just either to omit to punish the one deserving it, ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... arms. Rations were issued out to them the same as to the regular army. The willingness which the Mexicans exhibited on this occasion to volunteer, does them great credit, and clearly proves the fact that they do not always lack in courage, but that they are prompt to defend their homes when properly disciplined and aided with the means ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... foolish girl!" cried I, when he was gone, provoked to great contempt by her expression before him, "thou wilt make me despise thee in spite of my heart. But, pr'ythee, manage thy matters with common decency, at least."—"Good lack! Common decency, did you say? When my sister Polly is able to shew me what it is, I shall hope to be better for her example."—"No, thou'lt never be better for any body's example! Thy ill-nature and perverseness will continue to keep thee from that."—"My ill-temper, you have often ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... to listen to it—that a clause shall be inserted in the next Suffrage Bill that shall expressly give to each Cabinet Minister, and to any respectable man, the power to prevent a vote being given to the female members of his family, on his public declaration of their lack of sufficient intelligence to ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... lack: nom. sg. ne bi e wilna gd (thou shalt have no lack of desirable [valuable] ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.

... such work is, plainly, a lack of discriminating analysis. Telling a story necessarily implies non-identification of the teller with the event; he relates what occurs or occurred, outside of his circle of consciousness. Acting a play necessarily implies identification of the actor with the event; he presents to you a picture ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... own wide gardens; the streets and roads are lost amid the embowering foliage of trees and shrubs. The house-structures are built on every conceivable plan, up and down the wooded shores; every builder has evidently been his own architect to a great extent, and there is no lack of elbow-room hereaway. ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... Our most expensive hotels are full of whole families who, having become unexpectedly and abruptly wealthy, are now suffering from this painful form of financial embarrassment; they wish to disburse large sums freely and gracefully, and they don't know how. They lack the requisite training. In a way of speaking, this mendicant of Coney Island was perhaps of this class. With his jaw lolling, he looked at the stranger dubiously, uncertainly, suspiciously, ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... was Bartolommeo Sacchi, Cardinal Platina, historian of the Church, a chief member of the famous Roman Academy of the fifteenth century, and a mediaeval pagan, accused with Pomponius Letus and others of worshipping false gods; tried, acquitted for lack of evidence; dead in the odour of sanctity; proved at last ten times a heathen, and a bad one, today, by inscriptions found in the remotest part of the Catacombs, where he and his companions met in darkest secret to perform their extravagant rites. He lies beneath the chapel of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... There was a lack of interest in his voice, but she did not notice it. She was full of the wonder of the morning, the wonder of being again with him, and the wonder of what she had ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... has been added to the curricula of a large number of high schools. The teachers in Swedish in these high schools as well as in colleges and universities have been greatly handicapped in their work by the lack of properly edited texts. It is clearly essential to the success of their endeavor to create an interest in the Swedish language and its literature, at the same time maintaining standards of scholarship that are on a level with those maintained by ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner

... to the virtues of a former secretary. Here a member can warm himself and loaf and read; here, in defiance of Senatus-consults, he can smoke. The Senatus looks askance at these privileges; looks even with a somewhat vinegar aspect on the whole society; which argues a lack of proportion in the learned mind, for the world, we may be sure, will prize far higher this haunt of dead lions than all the ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to my belief, and I do believe it. I think you love him, and that you lack the courage to risk yourself ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... younger they are, as a rule, the chubbier and prettier they are. Gradually you can see herd-life getting hold of them, the impact of ugly sights and sounds commonising the essential grace and individuality of their little features. On the lack of any standard or restraint, any real glimpse of Nature, any knowledge of a future worth striving for, or indeed of any future at all, they thrive forward into that hand-to-mouth mood from which they are mostly destined never to emerge. Quick and scattery as monkeys, and never alone, they become, ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... the patrol commander, who gave permission to any of his men to volunteer for the hazardous enterprise. There was no lack of aspirants, for practically every man expressed his wish to take part in the sortie. Finally the subaltern chose three ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman

... the consciousness of degradation is the lack of manly feeling. Appreciation of manhood is a condition of improvement. He who thinks himself only an animal will live like one. Does this condition exist at the South? It could not be otherwise. Any one who ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various

... "for God's sake do not embarrass me with more alms. I loved to receive them from that hand, so long as they were needed; but they are so no more, and whatever else I may lack—and I lack everything—it is not money." I pulled out my sheaf of notes and detached the top one: it was written for ten pounds, and signed by that very famous individual, Abraham Newlands. "Oblige me, as you would like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... believing and persistent prayer, was being released in my behalf. My mother was a woman of remarkable Christian character, with rare qualities of mind and heart, knowledge and love of the Scriptures, and a deep and genuine prayer life. Notwithstanding my lack of sympathy with her in the things most fundamental, she had confidence that the tide would turn with me. Her confidence, however, was not based on me. She knew the Lord and understood that it was not the sheep that went out after the ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober

... greet him with affection. The boys who had gathered in the canyon to see the shooting were naturally indignant. Their indignation might have found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look in Tennessee's Partner's eye that indicated a lack of humorous appreciation. In fact, he was a grave man, with a steady application to practical detail which was unpleasant ...
— Tennessee's Partner • Bret Harte

... explained the boy; "and there's no humbug about his ailment, either. I heard the doctor tell my mother that it was partly due to a lack of substantial food for years. You see, the woman herself was ill for a long time, and her husband worked himself to skin and bone trying to provide for her. Then she got over her trouble, and now it's his turn to go under. He has tried to work a number of times, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson

... was most disconcerting. Jerry had no lack of a sense of humor and yet there was nothing that he ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... in parts of Oregon and Washington. They have a large, good crop, which sells locally, but, like most Pacific Coast fruits, the nuts lack flavor and quality. They have size and beauty, but lack quality. The fruits and nuts grown on the Pacific Coast all lack a certain fineness of character, for some reason ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various

... music closely, and I claim that German musicians, or rather let me say German producers of music, lack ear just about half of the time. Their students cannot compare with our college singing, their pedestrian parties, which one meets all through the country, singing, often from notes (and if you take the trouble ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... rule in the First Grade, Jimmy would have been discovered on the first one. But with less than that 2% of the teacher's time directed at him, Jimmy's run of correct answers did not attract notice. His boredom and his lack of attention during daydreams ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... to her mother; and the reply was a look which eloquently expressed Mrs. Warricombe's lack ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... Before this mystery should be solved, I foresaw that I might be involved to a degree that was unpleasant if not dangerous. Walters would remember that I first came here as one acquainted with the captain. He had noted, I felt sure, the lack of intimacy between the captain and myself, once the former arrived from India. He would no doubt testify that I had been most anxious to obtain lodgings in the same house with Fraser-Freer. Then there was the matter of my letter ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers

... from fear of them. They represented a world of which he was already shy, of high standards, duties rigorously performed, pledges to thrift and labor. Life with Kathi was more to his taste. He loved its easy irresponsibility, its lack of routine, its recognition of amusement as a prime necessity. He delivered his dictum, his mother wept triumphant tears, and the relations departed ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... During the many months that it has been in this Medium's possession I have made to her the most urgent appeals, both in person and by letter, to fulfill her promise of causing the writing to appear in it. Her invariable excuse has been her lack of time. ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... "I'm feared you'll lack it better dere, Miss Rena," replied Frank sorrowfully, dropping his mask of unconcern, "an' den you won't come back, an' none er yo' frien's won't never see you ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... some accounts left over from the day before, Little Compton came out on the sidewalk, and walked up and down in front of the door. He was in excellent humor, and as he walked he hummed a tune. He did not lack for companionship, for his cat, Tommy Tinktums, an extraordinarily large one, followed him back and forth, rubbing against him and running between his legs; but somehow he felt lonely. The town was very quiet. It was quiet at all times, but on this particular morning it seemed to Little Compton ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... There was no lack of employment now for Virgie. She had plenty to occupy heart, and brain, and hands, and of such a congenial nature that she reaped great benefit from it ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... battle to the uttermost by the faith of my body, while me lasteth the life, and therefore I had liefer to die with honour than to live with shame; and if it were possible for me to die an hundred times, I had liefer to die so oft than yield me to thee; for though I lack weapon, I shall lack no worship, and if thou slay me weaponless that shall be thy shame. Well, said Accolon, as for the shame I will not spare, now keep thee from me, for thou art but a dead man. And therewith Accolon gave him ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... which has expanded till it occupies three large houses, (3) one for British officers, which will be used for all ranks if the casualties next Saturday are heavy, (4) one for civilians. There seems to be no lack of drugs or dressings ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer

... was unavoidable was the lack of fresh water. There was none to wash in, though a glass of water was allowed for shaving! With an unlimited amount of sea water this may not seem much of a hardship; nor is it unless you have very dirty work to do. But inasmuch as some of the officers were coaling almost daily, ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... Chris not to be able to ask Mr. Wicker's advice and not to have his master's superior knowledge to lean on. Yet had he known it, it was just this lack which was making him quick witted ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... his extremely plain and friendly face. Young Mr. Stacey is notable, if for no other reason than that he represents a flat artistic failure on the part of the Bonnie Lassie, who has tried him in bronze, in plaster, and in clay with equal lack of success. There is something untransferable in the boy's face; perhaps its outshining character. I know that I never yet have said to any woman who knew him, no matter what her age, condition, or sentimental predilections, "Isn't he a homely cub!" that she didn't reply indignantly: ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... alone by himself, looking at the grass, saw his shadow slowly pass along before him. Lifting up his lack-lustre eyes, they fell on Tom. He immediately started up, and seized him by the collar. "Ah, my fine fellow, I've caught you at last, and all alone. I wanted to find you, and now I'll pay you off with ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... journals to which you have already sent the enclosed contribution, and state your reasons for supposing that the Editors were misguided. Hint that perhaps, after all, their lack of enterprise was fortunate ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various

... who had served with the Confederate army, and afterward, with broken health and in dire poverty, gave his brief life to music and poetry. He had rich capacities for both arts, but suffered in both from the lack of discipline and from an impetuous, restless imagination which drove him on to over-ambitious designs. Whatever the flaws in his affluent verse, it has grown constantly in popular favor, and he is, after Poe, the best known poet of the South. The late Edmund ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... should be givers of treasure to men. The beloved has enough of beaten gold and wealth, and a fair home among the strangers, the noble warriors that obey him. Banished from home, gone forth a homeless one, in the stranger-land good has come to him; he has no lack of anything but of her, who had with him come under an old threat, and had been parted from him. He vows to fulfil his pledge and love-troth, and he writes in runes some message, which she, as it appears, would ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... said he, "I know how honourable a man you are, and I think I know the way you feel. But, as one gentleman to another, permit me a word of counsel. 'Twere better to humour my Lord Rippingdale, and to yield up to the King's demands, than to lose all. Lack of money and estate—that is hard enough on a single man like me, but with a gentleman who has the care of a daughter, perhaps"—his look again met the young lady's face—"the case is harder. A little yielding on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... of the seventh year, extends it credit—"debt" it is called in the outlands—but it puts no more wool in its blankets, and for lack of food the body-fires burn low. But the cold remains inexorable. And with the thermometer at seventy degrees below zero, even in the years of plenty, when the philosophers eat almost daily, there is little of comfort. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... very soluble in water, but insoluble in most solvents, excepting methyl and ethyl alcohols. The above reactions show the similarity of this dinaphthyl derivative to the dicresyl derivative, and the absence in the former of characteristic reactions with iron salts is mainly accounted for by its lack of phenolic groups. The absence of this reaction does not, of course, influence the tannoid character of dinaphthylmethanedisulphonic acid in the least, and is of no importance in practice, since the various stages of tannage ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser

... announced his engagement by letter. It was an evasion that confessed a difficulty; a deviation implying an obstacle, where, by common consent, it was agreed to see none; it betrayed, in short, a lack of confidence in the completeness of his method. It had been his pride never to put himself in a position which had to be quitted, as it were, by the back door; but here, as he perceived, the main portals would have opened for him of their own ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... as she spoke. It was a large, square room, very clean and, it must be confessed, very bare. There was a bureau, one leg missing and the lack supplied by a brick; one chair, the bed and a little table (not large enough to be useful and not small enough to be ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence

... dear friend, and I don't want the best school in Scotland to be spoiled for the lack of a little care—care bestowed upon it at the right moment. Your girls, counting the Lennoxes, make fifteen. Altogether in the school you have therefore twenty-three children. How ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade



Words linked to "Lack" :   absence, dearth, famine, need, demand, stringency, tightness, have, shortness, shortage, exclude, mineral deficiency, deficit



Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com