lacuna

American  

[luh-kyoo-nuh] / ləˈkju nə /

noun

lacunae, plural lacunas plural

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

Derived Forms

• lacunosity
  noun
• lacunose
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• lacunae
  plural
• lacunas
  plural

Etymology

Origin of lacuna

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

Explanation

A lacuna is a gap or missing part. If you complain that there's a major lacuna in the bake sale, the lack of brownies is probably to blame. The noun lacuna means an empty space or a hole where something should be. It's used a lot to talk about missing parts of books or manuscripts, either because lost pages have created a lacuna, or because censors have blacked out or removed parts of them. In the study of anatomy, a lacuna is a hollowed-out place or a cavity within a bone. In Latin, lacuna means "pit or hole," and its plural is lacunae.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

lacuna lacunae lacunas

“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 ● Mar. 28, 2026

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2025

But, Mr. Roth said, “the Middle East is a lacuna in this declared willingness to be guided by human rights.”

From New York Times ● Apr. 26, 2022

"You now have empty shelves. The return of those objects will be like filling those shelves. There's a lacuna in our history because those objects were taken away."

From BBC ● Oct. 27, 2021

My minimal coverage of Japan in previous editions of Guns, Germs, and Steel constituted the most important geographic lacuna of my book.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

The epic we inherit is incomplete, a thing of lacunae and conjecture.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026

The lacunae in sources on Murrieta’s life is apparent in “Bring Me the Head of Joaquin Murrieta.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025

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 ● Oct. 28, 2025

Mr Pathirana admits that there are "some lacunae or deficiencies" in relation to certain specialists like paediatricians and transplant surgeons.

From BBC ● Mar. 15, 2024

The corollary is that widespread and open trade in ideas is the best way to make up for the lacunae.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

They are, instead, lacunas to be reckoned with, stemming from the abiding obscurity of human psychology and deepened by the mercurial, ever-fading state of memory.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026

Of course, we all have these lacunas in our reading histories.

From New York Times ● Mar. 3, 2023

Finding those lacunas is part of the fun of this show.

From Washington Post ● May 3, 2018

But at its most persuasive, “First Person” is an aria on the necessity of self-invention, on the loops and lacunas of memory and the bullish inadequacy of all language.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 4, 2018

My tendency, on the contrary, is to feel with increased force the lacunas, deformities, and imperfections of the group to which I belong.

From Amiel's Journal by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.