lacking

Lacking is an adjective and the present participle form of the verb to lack. It denotes that someone or something does not have a required quality, quantity, or characteristic, or that a situation is deficient relative to a standard. Lacking can indicate partial absence or insufficiency rather than total nonexistence.

In typical usage, lacking is followed by a prepositional phrase or a noun to specify what is missing, such as lacking in stamina, lacking funds, or a report lacking supporting data. It can also function in participial phrases: The team, lacking any defense, lost the game. The related noun lack denotes the state of being without something: a lack of evidence.

Etymology and form: lacking derives from the verb to lack, whose origins lie in old Germanic languages; the form lacking is the present participle used adjectivally or adverbially. Unlike lack as a noun or verb, lacking is usually used as an adjective or participle and typically requires a complement or context to convey what is missing.

Nuance and related terms: lacking often conveys insufficiency rather than complete absence, making it useful for qualifiers and evaluative statements. Related terms include deficient, wanting, missing, incomplete, and devoid, each carrying slightly different shades of meaning. The verb form lack can be used to describe absence more directly, while lacking emphasizes the ongoing state of deficiency in a subject.

See also: absence, shortage, deficiency, insufficiency.