Search Result for "deficiency": 
Wordnet 3.0

NOUN (2)

1. the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable;
- Example: "there is a serious lack of insight into the problem"
- Example: "water is the critical deficiency in desert regions"
- Example: "for want of a nail the shoe was lost"
[syn: lack, deficiency, want]

2. lack of an adequate quantity or number;
- Example: "the inadequacy of unemployment benefits"
[syn: insufficiency, inadequacy, deficiency]



The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

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.
   [1913 Webster]

         [Marlborough] was so miserably ignorant, that his
         deficiencies made him the ridicule of his
         contemporaries.                          --Buckle.
   [1913 Webster]

   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.
      [1913 Webster]


WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

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, deficiency, want]
    2: lack of an adequate quantity or number; "the inadequacy of
       unemployment benefits" [syn: insufficiency, inadequacy,
       deficiency] [ant: adequacy, sufficiency]