| Noun | 1. | deficiency - 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"absence - the state of being absent; "he was surprised by the absence of any explanation" need, demand - a condition requiring relief; "she satisfied his need for affection"; "God has no need of men to accomplish His work"; "there is a demand for jobs" deficit - a deficiency or failure in neurological or mental functioning; "the people concerned have a deficit in verbal memory"; "they have serious linguistic deficits" mineral deficiency - lack of a mineral micronutrient that is essential for normal nutrition or metabolism shortness - the condition of being short of something; "there was no shortness of money"; "can cause shortness of breath" stringency, tightness - a state occasioned by scarcity of money and a shortage of credit |
| 2. | deficiency - lack of an adequate quantity or number; "the inadequacy of unemployment benefits" amount - the relative magnitude of something with reference to a criterion; "an adequate amount of food for four people" exiguity, leanness, meagerness, meagreness, scantiness, scantness, poorness - the quality of being meager; "an exiguity of cloth that would only allow of miniature capes"-George Eliot deficit, shortage, shortfall - the property of being an amount by which something is less than expected or required; "new blood vessels bud out from the already dilated vascular bed to make up the nutritional deficit" scarceness, scarcity - a small and inadequate amount slenderness - the quality of being slight or inadequate; "he knew the slenderness of my wallet"; "the slenderness of the chances that anything would be done"; "the slenderness of the evidence" |