missing link
1
5.8
- noun
- /ˈmɪsɪŋ lɪŋk/
:
eslabón faltante
- Alternative-fuel vehicles are the missing link.
And this was the missing link in my life.
- And this was the missing link in my life.
- Now she's like the missing link, like she's the the piece that bridges that gap.
- That to me is the missing link that gets you to proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
- It felt like there was like a hole in beauty, like a hole, a missing link.
Examples
-
That to me is the missing link that gets you to proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
-
Boulder City Council members expressed strong support for the signing of the Intergovernmental Agreement and completion of the trail, a missing link in the Longmont-to-Boulder Trail Project.
Blog text (29) -
And this was the missing link in my life.
-
You are the missing link.
-
If not, it's a critical missing link in your selling system.
Blog text (22) -
The software was the missing link that now allows for automatic detection for the first time ever.
Blog text (31) -
The missing link between these two perspectives is applied research (Weiss, 1980).
Academic text (1991) -
The missing link between conservation and livelihood security needs to be addressed through both supply-and-demand interventions.
Academic text (2013) -
This pulsar seemed to provide the missing link between binary and isolated millisecond pulsars and generated dozens of scientific papers within a year of its discovery.
Academic text (1991) -
The new software update addresses the missing link in our security protocols.
Synonyms
34
3.0
An important fact that helps explain a situation or solve a problem
4
3.0
A thing you need for a recipe, process, or result to work
1
3.5
An important thing needed for something to work or succeed
Antonyms
How Complete
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'missing' (not present) and 'link' (a connection), so its meaning as an absent or necessary connection is directly derivable from the parts. This compositional interpretation is cross-linguistically common and thus a B1 learner who knows the constituents can reasonably infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The phrase missing link later came to mean any important piece that is absent; imagining ideas as a chain, people call the one 'missing' part the link that completes the chain. That's why it now means 'an essential missing part' in a system, story, or argument.