Lac

[lak] /læk/

noun
1.
a resinous substance deposited on the twigs of various trees in southern Asia by the female of the lac insect: used in the manufacture of varnishes, sealing wax, etc., and in the production of a red coloring matter.
Compare (defs 1, 2).
[lahk] /lɑk/
noun
1.
(in India)
2.
the sum of 100,000, especially of rupees. The usual punctuation for sums of Indian money above a lac is with a comma after the number of lacs: Rs. 30,52,000 (i.e., 30 lacs and 52,000) instead of 3,052,000.
3.
an indefinitely large number.
[lak] /læk/
noun
1.
(in prescriptions) milk.
1.
leading aircraftsman.
/læk/
noun
1.
a resinous substance secreted by certain lac insects, used in the manufacture of shellac
/lɑːk/
noun
1.
a variant spelling of lakh
abbreviation
1.
leading aircraftman
n.

“red resinous substance,” 1550s (perhaps via Middle French lacce), earlier lacca (early 15c., from Medieval Latin form lacca), from Persian lak, from Hindi lakh (Prakrit lakkha), from Sanskrit laksha “red dye,” which according to Klein is literally “one hundred thousand,” in reference to the insects that gather in great numbers on the trees and make the resin run out. But others say lakh is an alteration of Sanskrit rakh, from an IE root word for “color, dye” [Watkins]. Still another guess is that Sanskrit laksha is related to English lax, lox “salmon,” and the substance was perhaps originally so called from being somewhat the color of salmon [Barnhart].

lac (lāk)
n.

1.
Lacerta (constellation)
2.
LaCrosse encephalitis
3.
large area coverage
4.
local area coverage