lac

See also: Appendix:Variations of "lac"

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /læk/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -æk

Etymology 1

From Portuguese laca, from Hindi लाख (lākh)/Urdu لاکھ (lākh) or cognates in other Indo-Aryan languages, from Sanskrit लाक्षा (lākṣā).

Noun

lac (countable and uncountable, plural lacs)

1. A resinous substance or lacquer produced mainly on the banyan tree by the female of Kerria lacca, a scale insect.

Derived terms

• Ceylon lac
• lac dye
• lac insect
• lac lake
• lac scale
• lac tree
• Mexican lac
• seedlac
• shellac
• sticklac

 

Translations

a resinous substance

• Arabic: لُكّ m (lukk), لَكّ m (lakk)
• Assamese: লা (la)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: ^{(please verify)} 桼 (zh) (qī)

• Finnish: lakka (fi)
• French: laque (fr) f
• German: Lack (de) m
• Greek: λάκη f (láki)
• Hebrew: לַכָּה (he) f (láka)
• Hungarian: lakk (hu)
• Italian: lacca (it) f
• Japanese: ラッカー (rakkā)
• Kannada: ಅರಗು (kn) (aragu)
• Korean: 래커 (raekeo)
• Persian: لاک (fa) (lâk)
• Polish: lakier (pl) m
• Portuguese: laca (pt) f
• Russian: лак (ru) m (lak)
• Sanskrit: लाक्षा (sa) n (lākṣā)
• Spanish: laca (es) f
• Telugu: లక్క (te) (lakka)
• Thai: ครั่ง (khrâng)

Etymology 2

Noun

lac (plural lacs)

1. Dated spelling of lakh.
   • 1804, R[obert] Montgomery Martin, quoting Yashwantrao Holkar, “Section II. European Intercourse—Rise and Growth of British Power.”, in The Indian Empire: […], volume I (History, Topography, Population, Government, Finance, Commerce, and Staple Products), London; New York, N.Y.: The London Printing and Publishing Company, published [1858], →OCLC, page 399, column 2:

     […] 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.

   • 1878 August, “Contemporary Portraits. New Series.—No. 8. Charles Darwin, F.R.S.”, in The University Magazine: A Literary and Philosophic Review, volume II, London: Hurst & Blackett, […], →OCLC, page 154:

     The Laccadives and Maldives, for instance, meaning literally the "lac of islands" and the "thousand islands," are a series of such atolls; […]

Etymology 3

From Cadillac.

Noun

lac (plural lacs)

1. (slang) Clipping of Cadillac.

   Synonyms: caddie, caddy

   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.

   • 2005, “Drive Slow”, in Late Registration, performed by Kanye West:

     The candy gloss is immaculate, it's simply amazing / Them elbows poking wide on that candy ’Lac

Etymology 4

From laceration.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /læs/

• Rhymes: -æs

Noun

lac (countable and uncountable, plural lacs)

1. (medicine, colloquial) Laceration.

   hand lac

Anagrams

• ACL, CLA, Cal, Cal., LCA, alc, cal, cal.

Aromanian

Etymology

From Latin lacus (“lake”), from Proto-Italic *lakus, from Proto-Indo-European *lókus (“lake, pool”).

Noun

lac

1. lake

Dalmatian

Etymology

From Latin lacus (“lake”), from Proto-Italic *lakus, from Proto-Indo-European *lókus (“lake, pool”).

Noun

lac m

1. lake

Franco-Provençal

Etymology

From Latin lacus (“lake”), from Proto-Italic *lakus, from Proto-Indo-European *lókus (“lake, pool”). Compare Aragonese laco, Catalan llac, Esperanto lago, French lac, Italian lago, Maltese lag, Portuguese lago, Romanian lac, Sardinian lagu, Spanish lago.

Noun

lac m

1. lake

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French lac, from Old French lac, a replacement of earlier lai (“pit, trench, ditch, grave, mere, pond”) (see Old French lac). Generally inferred as a borrowing of Latin lacus (“lake”), from Proto-Italic *lakus, from Proto-Indo-European *lókus (“lake, pool”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lak/

• Audio (France, Paris)

  (file)

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ak
• Homophones: lacs, laque, laquent, laques

Noun

lac m (plural lacs)

1. lake

Derived terms

• Grands Lacs
• il n’y a pas le feu au lac
• lac Léman
• lac Poyang
• lac salé

 

Further reading

• “lac”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• ACL

K'iche'

Noun

lac

1. (Classical K'iche') plate

Latin

Poculum lactis.

Alternative forms

• lact, lacte

Etymology

From lact by simplification of a word-final sequence of two plosives (the variant nominative/accusative form lacte shows the addition of a vowel as an alternative). The etymology is controversial: there is no consensus on the cognate set, the manner of descent (inheritance vs. borrowing), or the form and ultimate orgin of the etymon. Possible cognates include Ancient Greek γάλα, γᾰ́λᾰκτ-/γᾰ́λᾰκ- (gála, gálakt-/gálak-, “milk”), Old Armenian կաթն (katʻn, “milk”) (or perhaps only its variant form Old Armenian *կաղց (*kałcʻ), reconstructed as the ancestor of modern dialectal Armenian կախց (kaxcʻ)) Hittite 𒂵𒆷𒀝𒋻 (galaktar, “balm, resin”), Albanian dhallë (“buttermilk”), Romanian zară (“buttermilk”) and Waigali zōr (“milk”).

More information

Pokorny reconstructs the Latin and Greek words as inherited from Proto-Indo-European *glakt n from a root *glag- or *glak-. De Vaan derives the Latin, Greek and Armenian forms from Proto-Indo-European *gl̥gt-, and follows Meiser in explaining the loss of initial *g- in Latin as a result of long-distance dissimilation. Per Nielsen, the Latin and Greek words can be derived from *glakt-, Old Armenian *կաղց (*kałcʻ) can be derived from *g(a)l(ḱ)t- (requiring an initial non-palatal velar), and Albanian dhallë can perhaps be derived from *ǵal(K)- (requiring an initial palatal velar); on the basis of the variability in the initial consonant and the unusual root structure, Nielsen considers the root to be non-Indo-European in origin.

There have been attempts to derive the word instead from the root *h₂melǵ- (“milk”).

• Garnier, Sagart and Sagot 2017 cite Garnier 2016's reconstruction of a verb *ambĭ-blactāre (“to milk with both hands”) > *amblactāre, supposing this was subsequently reanalyzed as *amb-lactāre and lost the prefix to yield the attested verb lactāre. The noun lac(t) would then derive by back-formation from the verb lactāre.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /lak/, [ɫ̪äk]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /lak/, [läk]

Noun

lac n sg (genitive lactis); third declension

1. milk

   Cum lacte nutricis. ― With the nurse's milk.

2. for something sweet, pleasant

   In melle sunt linguae sitae vostrae atque orationes, lacteque; corda felle sunt lita, atque acerbo aceto.

   In honey your tongues and speeches are dipped, and in milk; your hearts are smeared with gall and with bitter vinegar. (Plautus)

   Ut mentes ... satiari velut quodam jucundioris disciplinae lacte patiantur.

   That minds may endure being satisfied as by the milk of a more pleasant discipline. (Quintilian)

3. milky juice

   Lac herbae. ― Milk of a plant.

   cum lacte veneni. ― with poisonous milk.

   • c. 1st century BCE, Anonymous (formerly misattributed to Ovid), Nux

     Lamina mollis adhuc tenero dum lacte, quod intro est,
     nec mala sunt ulli nostra futura bono.

     As their nutshell still remains soft with something tenderly milky inside,
     my future fruits are not good to anyone.

4. (poetic) milk-white color
   • 2 CE, Publius Ovidius Naso, Ars Amatoria I.290:

     Forte sub umbrosis nemorosae vallibus Idae
     candidus, armenti gloria, taurus erat,
     signatus tenui media inter cornua nigro;
     una fuit labes, cetera lactis erant.

     As fortune had it, in the shadowy valleys of forested Ida,
     there was a white bull, the glory of its herd,
     marked by slightly black colour between its horns;
     the blemish was (only) one, the rest were milk-white.

Declension

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem), singular only.

Case	Singular
Nominative	lac
Genitive	lactis
Dative	lactī
Accusative	lac
Ablative	lacte
Vocative	lac

Derived terms

• ā lacte cūnīsque (“from the cradle, from infancy”)
• lac pressum (“cheese”)
• tam similem, quam lactis (“as like as one egg is to another”)
• qui plus lactis quam sanguinis habet (“of tender age”)

• collactāneus
• lacteolus
• lacteus
• lacteō
• lacticīnium
• lactifer
• lactineus
• lactoris
• lactāneus
• lactāris
• lactārius
• lactātum
• lactēscō
• lactō
• lactōsus
• lactūca
• lactūcārius

 

Descendants

• Late Latin: lactis (see there for further descendants)
• →⇒ English: lactic, lact(o)-
• → Esperanto: lakto
  • Ido: lakto
• → Interlingua: lacte
• → Interlingue: lacte

Further reading

• “lac”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “lac”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• lac in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[3], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • (ambiguous) to imbibe error from one's mother's breasts: errorem cum lacte nutricis sugere (Tusc. 3. 1. 2)
    

Norman

Etymology

From Old French lac, from Latin lacus (“lake”), from Proto-Italic *lakus, from Proto-Indo-European *lókus (“lake, pool”).

Noun

lac m (plural lacs)

1. (Jersey, geography) lake

Old English

Alternative forms

• læc

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *laik, from Proto-Germanic *laikaz, compare *laikaną. Cognates include Old Norse leikr (whence Danish leg (“game”), Swedish leka (“to play”)), Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌹𐌺𐍃 (laiks, “dance”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lɑːk/

Noun

lāc n or f

1. play, sport
2. battle, strife
3. gift, offering, sacrifice, booty; message

   Hie drihtne lac begen brohton.

   They both brought an offering to the Lord.

Declension

when neuter

Declension of lac (strong a-stem)

Case	Singular	Plural
nominative	lāc	lāc
accusative	lāc	lāc
genitive	lāces	lāca
dative	lāce	lācum

when feminine

Declension of lac (strong ō-stem)

Case	Singular	Plural
nominative	lāc	lāca, lāce
accusative	lāce	lāca, lāce
genitive	lāce	lāca
dative	lāce	lācum

Derived terms

• heaþolāc (“warfare”)
• wiflāc (“intercourse with a woman”)
• scīnlāc (“illusion, imagination, magical delusion”)

Related terms

• -lāc
• lācan
• lǣċan

Descendants

• Middle English: lok, loke, loc, loac, lock, lake, lac
  • English: lake (dialectal)

Old French

Alternative forms

• lai (early)

Etymology

Generally assumed to be a borrowing of Latin lacus (“basin, tank, tub, reservoir, pond”), displacing the native Old French lai (“pit, grave, trench, mere, pond”), inherited from the same Latin term, by the early 13th century. Latin lacus derives from Proto-Italic *lakus, from Proto-Indo-European *lókus (“lake, pool”),

The displacement of Old French lai may have been assisted by influence from early Middle English lac, lace (“lake, pond, pool", also "pit, ditch, trench”), from Old English lacu (“pool, pond, lake”), due to lac's sudden spread in Old French following the annexation of English controlled Normandy into the kingdom of France in 1204. An outright borrowing of the term from Middle English rather than from the Latin is also not outside the realm of possibility, as the earliest attestations of Old French lac are in the Eadwine Psalter (written by Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman scribes in England) and Erec and Enide (an Arthurian romance, whose author was heavily influenced by English, Anglo-Norman, and Celtic writings).

The Old Occitan lac, laz, latz (“snare, noose", also "pit, hole”), which some theorise as leading to the Old French form (with c), is actually derived from a different Latin root related to Old French laz (“snare, noose, lace”), and possibly conflated with Old High German lacha (“ditch, trench, pool”). See Italian lacca (“hole, pit”).

Noun

lac oblique singular, m (oblique plural las, nominative singular las, nominative plural lac)

1. lake

Descendants

• Middle French: lac
  • → Middle English: lac
  • French: lac
  • Norman: lac (Jersey)

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *laggos, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)leh₁g-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /l͈aɡ/

Adjective

lac

1. weak, feeble
2. (hair) soft, smooth

Derived terms

• lacaid
• lacatus

Descendants

• Irish: lag
• Manx: lag
• Scottish Gaelic: lag

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
lac also llac after a proclitic	lac pronounced with /l(ʲ)-/	unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “lac”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Romanian

Etymology

Inherited from Latin lacus (“lake”), from Proto-Italic *lakus, from Proto-Indo-European *lókus (“lake, pool”). Compare Aragonese laco, Catalan llac, Esperanto lago, French lac, Italian lago, Maltese lag, Portuguese lago, Sardinian lagu, Spanish lago.

Noun

lac n (plural lacuri)

1. lake

Declension

Declension of lac

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) lac	lacul	(niște) lacuri	lacurile
genitive/dative	(unui) lac	lacului	(unor) lacuri	lacurilor
vocative	lacule		lacurilor

Derived terms

• lăcos

Romansch

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

lac m

1. paint

Synonyms

• vernisch (Rumantsch Grischun, Sursilvan, Puter, Vallader), verneisch (Surmiran)

Zazaki

Alternative forms

• laj
• laz

Etymology

Compare Middle Armenian լաճ (lač).

Pronunciation

• (Northern Zazaki) IPA^(key): [ˈlɑdz]
• (Southern Zazaki) IPA^(key): [ˈlɑdʒ]
• Hyphenation: lac

Noun

lac m

1. son

   O lacê mıno. ― He is my son.

   Lacê to lacê mı rê vano. ― Your son says to my son.

2. boy

   Çı lacê do rındo. ― What a beautiful boy.