Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An empty space or a missing part; a gap.
  • noun Anatomy A cavity, space, or depression, especially in a bone, containing cartilage or bone cells.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A pit or hollow.
  • noun A gap; a hiatus; especially, a vacancy caused by the omission, loss, or obliteration of something necessary to continuity or completeness.
  • noun In conchology, the typical genus of Lacunidæ.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A small opening; a small pit or depression; a small blank space; a gap or vacancy; a hiatus.
  • noun (Biol.) A small opening; a small depression or cavity; a space, as a vacant space between the cells of plants, or one of the spaces left among the tissues of the lower animals, which serve in place of vessels for the circulation of the body fluids, or the cavity or sac, usually of very small size, in a mucous membrane.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small opening; a small pit or depression; a small blank space; a gap or vacancy; a hiatus.
  • noun An absent part, especially in a book or other piece of writing, often referring to an ancient manuscript or similar.
  • noun microscopy A space visible between cells, allowing free passage of light.
  • noun linguistics A language gap, which occurs when there is no direct translation in the target language for a lexical term found in the source language

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a blank gap or missing part
  • noun an ornamental sunken panel in a ceiling or dome

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin lacūna; see lagoon.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin lacūna ("ditch, gap"), diminutive form of lacus ("lake").

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Examples

  • This lacuna is conspicuous when compared to the extensive comparative literature on similar welfare institutions in the advanced industrialized economies of Western Europe and North America.

    Archive 2006-06-01 2006

  • This lacuna is conspicuous when compared to the extensive comparative literature on similar welfare institutions in the advanced industrialized economies of Western Europe and North America.

    La Profesora Abstraida 2006

  • Is this because these spiritual guides of our race are too poor or too over-worked to serve his purpose, or do we perhaps, -- in this regrettable "lacuna" -- stumble upon one of the little smiling prejudices of our great conformist?

    Suspended Judgments Essays on Books and Sensations John Cowper Powys 1917

  • One of these lacunæ, larger than the rest, is situated on the upper surface of the fossa navicularis; it is called the lacuna magna.

    XI. Splanchnology. 3b. 4. The Male Urethra 1918

  • Usually she found herself alone in a kind of lacuna, with people moving aside to pass her by at a safe distance.

    The Year's Best Science Fiction 23rd Annual Collection Dozois, Gardner 2006

  • Yet, given this "lacuna," this amazing "gap" in his work, a deprivation much more serious than his want of "philosophy,"

    Visions and Revisions A Book of Literary Devotions John Cowper Powys 1917

  • He's foppish, priapic and urbane, making the word 'lacuna' sound like a decadent holiday destination.

    Evening Standard - Home 2010

  • He's foppish, priapic and urbane, making the word 'lacuna' sound like a decadent holiday destination.

    Evening Standard - Home 2010

  • He's foppish, priapic and urbane, making the word 'lacuna' sound like a decadent holiday destination.

    Evening Standard - Home 2010

  • He's foppish, priapic and urbane, making the word 'lacuna' sound like a decadent holiday destination.

    Evening Standard - Home 2010

Comments

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  • Sounds like a holiday destination.

    May 8, 2008

  • Yes, it's just south of Kokomo.

    May 8, 2008

  • Beware the creature from the Black Lacuna!

    May 10, 2008

  • Ingstad and Whyte noted this gap in their pioneering edited collection Disability and Culture (1995) 20 years ago; Kasnitz and Shuttleworth made the same point a few years later (2001a, b); and, according to Rapp and Ginsburg (2012; Ginsburg and Rapp 2013), the lacuna still remains.

    February 17, 2018