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”; 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

“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

“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 • Oct. 8, 2025

This is related to a question of ethics, which is what is falling in that lacuna between greatness and crap that only criticism can both explicate and reify in some way.

From New York Times • Jan. 7, 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