manquants

Manquants is a French noun used to describe things or people that are not present as expected. The singular adjective manquant means missing, lacking, or unaccounted for, and manquants is its plural form when referring to multiple items or individuals.

In accounting and inventory contexts, manquants denotes shortages or discrepancies between recorded stock and actual stock. Inventory reports may list manquants to quantify losses, misplaced items, or errors that require investigation and correction.

In archival, administrative, and legal settings, manquants can refer to missing documents, files, or records. For example, a case file or administration file may note manquants elements that have yet to be located or verified.

In data management and statistics, related terminology uses valeurs manquantes to describe missing data points; discussions about datasets often refer to several variables or observations as containing manquants, depending on the context.

In museums, archaeology, and cultural heritage, manquants may indicate artifacts or items that are currently unlocated or lost from a collection or exhibit, affecting curatorial records and research.

Usage notes: the term is primarily found in French-language texts. In English-language contexts, translators often render manquants as missing items, shortages, missing data, or missing documents, depending on the domain. See also manquants in contrast to personnes manquantes or disparus for human-rights and forensic contexts, and valeurs manquantes in data science.