Etymology
There are no unambiguous attestations of a Gmc *
lak- root in OE (except possibly (late) <onleccungæ> at
PsGlE 88.35, which
AEW s.v.
læccan (2) suggests is derived on this root), but the ME period sees the appearance of a n.
lak ‘lack, absence, want; fault, failing (etc.)’ (recorded from
c. 1300) (see
lake), an adj.
lak ‘blameworthy, at fault’ (whose single ME witness is in a1450
Castle Persev.(Folg V.a.354)), and this v. These words are often explained as native in origin, and hence as cognate with (nouns) MLG
lak, MDu
lac ‘deficiency, fault, blame’, OFris
lek ‘shame, blemish’ and OIcel
mállaki ‘defect of the speech organs’, and (adjectives) OIcel
lakr ‘lacking, defective’, MDu
lac ‘lascivious’, MLG
lak(k) ‘limp, loose, not firm’ and (verbs) Fris
lakia ‘to contest’, MDu
lacken,
laken, MLG
laken ‘to be wanting; to disdain, criticize’. Thus
MED concludes it is ‘Prob. OE.’ (with a cp. to the other Gmc nouns, and the OIcel adj.), and GDS simply compares the MLG n. But the absence of any such forms in OE texts has inevitably led some to suggest that the ME
lak- words might show foreign input, whether from LG (thus TGD, < MLG
lak), or from Scandinavian: thus
OED regards the English v. as a derivation either upon the n. or the adj., and explains the latter as ‘< or cognate with’ the ON adj.;
ODEE entertains a native source, ‘but some uses may be of Scand. or LG. origin’; and Toll (32) thinks that an ON etymon is not to be ruled out. The Gmc root *
lak- is almost always in turn regarded as ult. cognate with Grk
lagarós, OIr
lacc ‘limp’, etc. (although Kroonen idiosyncratically explains the Gmc v. as an iterative formation on PGmc *
lahan-, as in e.g. OE
lēan ‘to blame, reproach’).
PGmc Ancestor
*lak-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
cp. lakr (adj.) 'lacking, defective', mállaki (n.) ‘defect of the speech organs’
(ONP cp. lakr (adj.); mál-laki (sb.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
cp. Far lakur, Icel lakur, Norw ilak, ODan illake, Sw elak
OE Cognate
Phonological and morphological markers
Summary category
BBB2a