in the absence of

in the absence of (someone or something)

Because someone or something is not available or present. You're a better cook than I am—what can we substitute in the absence of butter? In the absence of our secretary, who will log the minutes?
See also: absence, of
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

in the absence of someone or something

while someone or something isn't here; without someone or something. In the absence of the cook, I'll prepare dinner. In the absence of opposition, she won easily.
See also: absence, of
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • in the absence of (someone or something)
  • be conspicuous by (one's) absence
  • conspicuous
  • be a sight for sore eyes
  • hold for
  • hold for (someone)
  • sight for sore eyes
  • a sight for sore eyes
  • approach (one) about
  • approach about
References in periodicals archive
What would have happened had an ATC not been available and the player had been allowed to finish the fourth quarter -- a likelihood in the absence of an allied health care medical professional?
Why Do High Schools Need ATCs?
In the absence of an architectural messiah, the public is driven to become more discerning in its appreciation of the century past-returning to classic modernism to find its unsung heroes.
City of Angles
Even in the absence of new federal legislation, many courts have found rationales for allowing suits against MCOs to go forward despite ERISA.
Liability of medical directors: a growing concern. (Managed Care on Trial)
"They concluded that in the absence of solid international and domestic support, it was best to mount yet another diplomatic effort."
Chalk one up for us
But in the absence of anything better, many INS district directors instructed their examiners to choose their questions off of the list of 100.
It's the exam that fails: how the INS citizenship test misses the point
For example, in the absence of any cultural factor, agents with relatively low metabolism and high vision enjoy a selective advantage in Sugarscape.
The gods of sugarscape; digital sex, migration, trade, and war on the social science frontier
In the absence of a reasonable excuse for defendant's prolonged disobedience, the striking of his answer was a proper exercise of discretion.
Defendant's belated attempt to "appear" for EBT by telephone fails
It is more an ontological oddity: a private space with public aspirations, an art object with blatant use value, a museum exhibition in the absence of a museum, if not of its institutional procedures and ritual objects - uniformed guards, official hours, and a show on loan from another museum (an exhibition of Pardo's handblown glass lights, borrowed from the Museum Boijmarts Van Beuningen in Rotterdam).
In the absence of a deus ex machina, context typically arbitrates what is and is not art.
Home work
The problem lies not so much in the effects of the fat substitutes on flavor as in the absence of fat.
Designer fats; companies offer to satisfy fat cravings without wrecking arteries
In the absence of familiar cues, including the artist's previous work, we are tugged between gut reactions of amusement, disgust, pleasure, and a more critical objectivity with respect to the bizarre narrative direction in which Dunham is taking us.
Carroll Dunham: Metro Pictures