[f. LACK v.1 + -ING2.]
1. Of things: Not at hand; missing; also, short in quantity.
1480. Wardr. Acc. Edw. IV. (1830), 145. Except ij yerdes lakking in alle.
1566. Eng. Ch. Furniture (1866), 82. The Rood with a paire of Clappers Lackinge.
1611. Bible, Lev. ii. 13. Neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the Couenant of thy God to bee lacking from thy meat offering.
1879. Tyndall, Fragm. Sci. (ed. 6), II. ii. 11. Flour was lacking to make the sacramental bread.
1881. Evans, in Speaker’s Comm. N. T., III. 241. Historical materials are lacking.
2. Of persons, etc.: Deficient, falling short, in want; also, defaulting. † Of a limb: Crippled. Of a district: Destitute.
1657. Reeve, God’s Plea, 18. Clisophus the Sycophant of Philip feigned himself lame, because his Master had through a wound a laking legge.
1805. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., III. 310. The lean and lacking corners of the empire produce the most hardy and robust people.
1838. Chalmers, Wks., XIII. 186. He may regard God in the light of a jealous exactor and himself in the light of a lacking tributary.
1868. Nettleship, Browning, i. 44. The tree must give me its leaf or I must go lacking.
1868. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. vii. 23. In all kingly qualities he was utterly lacking.
1878. Browning, La Saisiaz, 61. Grant … This same law found lacking now.
