lacuna

American  

[luh-kyoo-nuh] / ləˈkyu nə /

noun

plural

lacunae, lacunas

1. a gap or missing part, as in a manuscript, series, or logical argument; hiatus.

2. Anatomy. one of the numerous minute cavities in the substance of bone, supposed to contain nucleate cells.

3. Botany. an air space in the cellular tissue of plants.

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lacuna British  

/ ˌlækjʊˈnɒsɪtɪ, ləˈkjuːnə /

noun

1. a gap or space, esp in a book or manuscript

2. biology a cavity or depression, such as any of the spaces in the matrix of bone

3. another name for coffer

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Other Word Forms

• lacunose adjective
• lacunosity noun

Etymology

Origin of lacuna

First recorded in 1655–65; from Latin lacūna “ditch, pit, hole, gap, deficiency,” akin to lacus “basin, tub, vat, lake”; lake ¹. lagoon

Example Sentences

“Seurat and the Sea,” a scholarly and astonishingly beautiful show now at the Courtauld Gallery, and organized by Karen Serres, the museum’s senior curator of paintings, fills that critical lacuna.

From The Wall Street Journal

Even as Ms. Back writes searchingly and evocatively about her suffering, she finds that narrative prose cannot depict the “black pit of depression, a landscape marked by lacunae.”

From The Wall Street Journal

The court found "there were some critical lacunae" in relevant Swiss regulations, including a failure to quantify limits on national greenhouse gas emissions.

From Barron's

“It’s been a lacuna, and it’s been something that I really never thought we’d have a prayer of fixing,” said Barron.

From Los Angeles Times

As for a biography of Talking Heads, we are still left with a lacuna that Gould has unfortunately not filled.

From Los Angeles Times