lacking
part of speech
adjective (lacking); verb form of lack (lack, lacks, lacked, lacking)
meaning for a pupil
1) Lacking means not having something you need, or not having enough of it. tree →
2) Lacking in something means having too little of it: lacking in sleep. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths: tells a shortage: how many are missing to reach a whole set or a goal: lacking = needed − have, have = needed − lacking. In science: plants lacking water wilt; a diet lacking vitamins makes people ill. Phrases: lacking in, be lacking, sadly lacking.
examples
- The set is lacking 3 cards. tree →
- She was lacking $5 to buy the toy. tree →
- The puzzle is lacking 12 pieces out of 100. tree →
- They were lacking 2 players for a team of 11. tree →
- The plant was lacking water, so its leaves drooped. tree →
- The story was lacking an ending. tree →
- He felt tired because he was lacking sleep. tree →
- Nothing was lacking for the picnic. tree →
- Only thy coat is lacking before I keep my word. tree →
note
«Lacking» comes from «lack». Marks what is missing: lacking = needed − have, or have = needed − lacking. Trap: «lacking 5» means you need 5 more, not that 5 are left.
In the corpora
- Vitamin C helps wounds heal and keeps gums and skin healthy, and sailors once got scurvy from lacking it.
- And truth is lacking, and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «lacking» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.