different between demerit vs lack

English

Etymology

From Old French desmerite (compare French démérite).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??m?r?t/
• Rhymes: -?r?t

Noun

demerit (countable and uncountable, plural demerits)

2. A quality of being inadequate; a fault; a disadvantage
   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

     They see no merit or demerit in any man or any action.
3. A mark given for bad conduct to a person attending an educational institution or serving in the army.
   • 2002, George W. Bush, Commencement Address at West Point:

     A few of you have followed in the path of the perfect West Point graduate, Robert E. Lee, who never received a single demerit in four years. Some of you followed in the path of the imperfect graduate, Ulysses S. Grant, who had his fair share of demerits, and said the happiest day of his life was "the day I left West Point." (Laughter.)

4. That which one merits or deserves, either of good or ill; desert.
   • c. 1550s, Nicholas Udall, Ralph Roister Doister

     Leave here thy body, death has her demerit

   • 1603, Philemon Holland (translator), The Philosophie, commonly called, the Morals (originally by Plutarch)

     By many benefits and demerits whereby they obliged their adherents, [they] acquired this reputation.

Synonyms

• discredit

Antonyms

• merit

Derived terms

• demerit point

Translations

Verb

demerit (third-person singular simple present demerits, present participle demeriting, simple past and past participle demerited)

1. (transitive, archaic) To deserve.
   • 1840, Alexander Campbell, Dolphus Skinner, A discussion of the doctrines of the endless misery and universal salvation (page 351)

     You hold that every sin is an infinite evil, demeriting endless punishment.

2. (transitive, archaic) To depreciate or cry down.
   • 1576, John Woolton, The Christian Manuell

     Faith by her own dignity and worthiness doth not demerit justice and righteousness; but receiveth and embraceth the same offered unto us in the gospel […]

Anagrams

• detemir, dimeter, merited, mitered, red time, retimed

English

Etymology

Middle English, cognate with or from Middle Low German lak, Middle Dutch lac (“deficiency”) and Middle Dutch laken (“blame, lack”); all ultimately from Proto-Germanic *laka-, related to *lak(k)?n- (“to blame, reproach”), from Proto-Indo-European *lok-néh?-. See also Dutch lak (“calumny”), Old Norse lakr (“lacking”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /lak/
• (US) IPA^(key): /læk/
• Rhymes: -æk

Noun

lack (countable and uncountable, plural lacks)

1. (obsolete) A defect or failing; moral or spiritual degeneracy.
2. A deficiency or need (of something desirable or necessary); an absence, want.
   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene 1,^[1]

     […] let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation;

   • 1994, Green Day, Basket Case

     I went to a shrink, to analyze my dreams. He said it's lack of sex that's bringing me down.

Antonyms

• glut
• surplus

Derived terms

• lackless

Translations

Verb

lack (third-person singular simple present lacks, present participle lacking, simple past and past participle lacked)

1. (transitive) To be without, to need, to require.

   My life lacks excitement.

2. (intransitive) To be short (of or for something).

   He'll never lack for company while he's got all that money.

   • c. 1600,, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Scene 4,^[2]

     Hamlet. What hour now?

     Horatio. I think it lacks of twelve.

3. (intransitive, obsolete) To be in want.
   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Psalm 34.10,^[3]

     The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger […]

4. (obsolete) To see the deficiency in (someone or something); to find fault with, to malign, reproach.
   • c. 1385, William Langland, Piers Plowman, II:

     That is Mede þe Mayde quod she · hath noyed me ful oft / And ylakked my lemman.

Related terms

• lackluster

Translations

Further reading

• Kroonen, Guus (2013) , “lak(k)on-”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11), Leiden, Boston: Brill, ?ISBN, page 325

Anagrams

• calk, kcal

German

Pronunciation

Verb

lack

1. imperative singular of lacken
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of lacken

Swedish

Etymology

From French lacre (“sealing wax”), from Portuguese laca.

Noun

lack n

1. lacquer

Declension

Related terms

• klarlack
• lacknafta
• lackskor
• nagellack