DEFICIENCY

insufficiency, inadequacy, deficiency

(noun) lack of an adequate quantity or number; “the inadequacy of unemployment benefits”

lack, deficiency, want

(noun) the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable; “there is a serious lack of insight into the problem”; “water is the critical deficiency in desert regions”; “for want of a nail the shoe was lost”

Source: WordNet® 3.1

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Etymology

Noun

deficiency (countable and uncountable, plural deficiencies)

(uncountable) Inadequacy or incompleteness.

(countable) An insufficiency, especially of something essential to health.

(geometry) The amount by which the number of double points on a curve is short of the maximum for curves of the same degree.

(geometry) The codimension of a linear system in the corresponding complete linear system.

Antonyms

• sufficiency

• excess

Source: Wiktionary

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De*fi"cien*cy, n.; pl. Deficiencies. Etym: [See Deficient.]

Definition: The state of being deficient; inadequacy; want; failure; imperfection; shortcoming; defect. "A deficiencyof blood." Arbuthnot. [Marlborough] was so miserably ignorant, that his deficiencies made him the ridicule of his contemporaries. Buckle. Deficiency of a curve (Geom.), the amount by which the number of double points on a curve is short of the maximum for curves of the same degree.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

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