lac
/læk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.31 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A resinous substance or lacquer produced mainly on the banyan tree by the female of Kerria lacca, a scale insect.
Countable; Uncountable
name
A surname.
Example Sentences
- "At the turn of the century, the ever-expanding electrical industry was running low on shellac, a resin secreted by the female lac bug which could be used as an insulating material."
- "[…] Lake [i.e., Gerard Lake, 1st Viscount Lake] should not have leisure to breathe for a moment, and calamities would fall on lacs of human beings in continued war by the attacks of his army, which would overwhelm like the waves of the sea."
- "The Laccadives and Maldives, for instance, meaning literally the "lac of islands" and the "thousand islands," are a series of such atolls; […]"
- "Last night I was driving around in my lac."
- "1992, Big Mello, Bone Hard Zaggin, Rap-A-Lot Records, track 5. "Mac's Drive 'Lac's" Macs drive lacs."
- "The candy gloss is immaculate, it's simply amazing / Them elbows poking wide on that candy ’Lac"
Etymology
From Portuguese laca, from Hindi लाख (lākh)/Urdu لاکھ (lākh) or cognates in other Indo-Aryan languages, from Sanskrit लाक्षा (lākṣā). Doublet of lacquer.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: laca, लाख, لاکھ, लाक्षा
Usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
- Slang
- Colloquial
- British usage
- Canadian usage
- American usage