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Lack vs Reduce - What's the difference?

lack | reduce |

In transitive terms the difference between lack and reduce

is that lack is to be without, to need, to require while reduce is to bring to an inferior state or condition.

In intransitive terms the difference between lack and reduce

is that lack is to be in want while reduce is to lose weight.

As a noun lack

is a defect or failing; moral or spiritual degeneracy.

lack

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • (obsolete) A defect or failing; moral or spiritual degeneracy.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned.}}
  • A deficiency or need (of something desirable or necessary); an absence, want.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Let his lack of years be no impediment.
  • * 1994 , (Green Day),
  • I went to a shrink, to analyze my dreams. He said it's lack of sex that's bringing me down.''
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=September 7, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC Sport
  • , title= Moldova 0-5 England , passage=If Moldova harboured even the slightest hopes of pulling off a comeback that would have bordered on miraculous given their lack of quality, they were snuffed out 13 minutes before the break when Oxlade-Chamberlain picked his way through midfield before releasing Defoe for a finish that should have been dealt with more convincingly by Namasco at his near post.}}

    Antonyms

    * glut * surplus

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To be without, to need, to require.
  • My life lacks excitement.
  • To be short (of'' or ''for something).
  • He'll never lack for company while he's got all that money.
  • * Shakespeare
  • What hour now? I think it lacks of twelve.
  • To be in want.
  • * Bible, Psalms xxxiv. 10
  • The young lions do lack , and suffer hunger.

    Anagrams

    * ----

    reduce

    English

    Verb

  • To bring down the size, quantity, quality, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower, to impair.
  • * to reduce weight, speed, heat, expenses, price, personnel etc.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Stephen Ledoux , title=Behaviorism at 100 , volume=100, issue=1, page=60 , magazine= citation , passage=Becoming more aware of the progress that scientists have made on behavioral fronts can reduce the risk that other natural scientists will resort to mystical agential accounts when they exceed the limits of their own disciplinary training.}}
  • To lose weight.
  • To bring to an inferior rank; to degrade, to demote.
  • * to reduce a sergeant to the ranks
  • * An ancient but reduced family. --.
  • * Nothing so excellent but a man may fasten upon something belonging to it, to reduce it. --.
  • * Having reduced their foe to misery beneath their fears. -- .
  • * Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced . --.
  • *
  • Neither [Jones] nor I (in 1966) could conceive of reducing our "science" to the ultimate absurdity of reading Finnish newspapers almost a century and a half old in order to establish "priority."
  • To humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture.
  • * to reduce a province or a fort
  • To bring to an inferior state or condition.
  • * to reduce a city to ashes
  • (cooking) To decrease the liquid content of food by boiling much of its water off.
  • (chemistry) To add electrons / hydrogen or to remove oxygen.
  • (metallurgy) To produce metal from ore by removing nonmetallic elements in a smelter.
  • (mathematics) To simplify an equation or formula without changing its value.
  • (legal) To convert to written form (Usage note: this verb almost always take the phrase "to writing").
  • * It is important that all business contracts be reduced to writing.
  • (medicine) To perform a reduction; to restore a fracture or dislocation to the correct alignment.
  • (military) To reform a line or column from (a square).
  • Synonyms

    * (to bring down) cut, decrease, lower

    Antonyms

    * (to bring down) increase

    See also

    * reducing agent

    References

    * ----