lakked

v. (past)

WA pres. 3 sg. lackis

‘offended against; found fault with; (impers.) were at fault; is absent’ (Modern English lacked)

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

Attestation

The ME v. is first attested in a1225(?OE) Vsp.A.Hom.(Vsp A.22) and widespread, though there are relatively few citations in MED before the 14c.

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 1250, 2366; Cl 723; WA 4811

Bibliography

MED lakken (v.) , OED lack (v.1) , HTOED , HTOED , Dance lakked, de Vries lakr, lákr, Mag. lakur, Orel *lakaz, Kroonen *lak(k)ôn, Heid. laka-