Hypertext Webster Gateway: "deficiency"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Deficiency \De*fi"cien*cy\, n.; pl. {Deficiencies}. [See
{Deficient}.]
The state of being deficient; inadequacy; want; failure;
imperfection; shortcoming; defect. ``A deficiency of 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.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
deficiency
n 1: 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"
[syn: {lack}, {want}]
2: lack of an adequate quantity or number; "the inadequacy of
unemployment benefits" [syn: {insufficiency}, {inadequacy}]
[ant: {sufficiency}, {sufficiency}]
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