deficiency

Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Financial, Acronyms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Related to deficiency: Deficiency diseases, Deficiency judgment, Iron deficiency

de·fi·cien·cy

(dĭ-fĭsh′ən-sē)

n. pl. de·fi·cien·cies

1. The quality or condition of being deficient; incompleteness or inadequacy.

2. A lack or shortage, especially of something essential to health: a nutritional deficiency.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

deficiency

(dɪˈfɪʃənsɪ)

n, pl -cies

1. the state or quality of being deficient

2. a lack or insufficiency; shortage

3. (Accounting & Book-keeping) another word for deficit

4. (Genetics) biology the absence of a gene or a region of a chromosome normally present

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

de•fi•cien•cy

(dɪˈfɪʃ ən si)

n., pl. -cies.

1. the state of being deficient; lack; insufficiency.

2. the amount or quality lacked.

[1625–35; < Late Latin dēficientia]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

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" lack, want 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" dearth, famine, shortage - an acute insufficiency 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" inadequacy, insufficiency 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"

deficiency

noun

1. lack, want, deficit, absence, shortage, deprivation, inadequacy, scarcity, dearth, privation, insufficiency, scantiness They did tests for signs of vitamin deficiency.
lack abundance, sufficiency, adequacy, surfeit, superfluity

2. failing, fault, weakness, defect, flaw, drawback, shortcoming, imperfection, frailty, demerit the most serious deficiency in their air defence

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

deficiency

noun

The condition or fact of being deficient:

defect, deficit, inadequacy, insufficiency, lack, paucity, poverty, scantiness, scantness, scarceness, scarcity, shortage, shortcoming, shortfall, underage.

Translations

نَقْص، نُقْصان

nedostatek

mangelfuldhedufuldkommenhedutilstrækkelighed

Defekt Defizit Mangel

ανεπάρκεια

deficiencia

vajaus

carence déficience manque privation vice

skortur, vöntun

deficienza mancante mancanza carenza deficiente mentale

eksiklikyetersizlik

deficiency

[dɪˈfɪʃənsɪ]

A. N

1. (gen) → deficiencia f; (= lack) → falta f (Med) (= weakness) → debilidad f
vitamin deficiency → avitaminosis f, déficit m vitamínico

2. (in system, plan, character etc) → defecto m

3. (Fin) → déficit m

B. CPD deficiency disease N → mal m carencial

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

deficiency

[dɪˈfɪʃ^ənsi] n

(= inadequacy) → insuffisance f, faiblesse f

[vitamin, mineral] → carence f

(in number) → insuffisance mdeficiency disease n → maladie f de carence

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

deficiency

n (= shortage) → Mangel m; (Fin) → Defizit nt, → Fehlbetrag m; (= defect: in character, system) → Schwäche f; vitamin/iron deficiency → Vitamin-/Eisenmangel m

deficiency

deficiency disease

n (Med) → Mangelkrankheit f

deficiency guarantee

n (Fin) → Ausfallbürgschaft f

deficiency payment

n (Fin) → Ausgleichszahlung f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

deficiency

[dɪˈfɪʃ/ənsɪ] n

a. (of goods) → mancanza, insufficienza; (of vitamins, minerals, protein) → carenza

b. (in system, plan) → carenza

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

deficient

(diˈfiʃənt) adjective

lacking in what is needed. Their food is deficient in vitamins.

deˈficiency – plural deˈficiencies – noun

(a) shortage or absence of what is needed.

de·fi·cien·cy

n. deficiencia, falta de algún elemento esencial al organismo;

___ disease → enfermedad por deficiencia;

galactokinasa ___ → ___ de galactocinasa;

lactase ___ → ___ de lactasa;

mineral ___ → ___ mineral;

mental ___ → ___ mental;

oxygen ___ → falta de oxígeno.

deficiency

n (pl -cies) deficiencia, carencia, falta

References in classic literature ?

It had once or twice crossed his mind that possibly there was some deficiency in Dorothea to account for the moderation of his abandonment; but he was unable to discern the deficiency, or to figure to himself a woman who would have pleased him better; so that there was clearly no reason to fall back upon but the exaggerations of human tradition.

View in context

Poyser examining it with her keen eye and trying in vain to find out a deficiency; and, of course, close to Mrs.

It had cost Adam a great deal of trouble and work in overhours to know what he knew over and above the secrets of his handicraft, and that acquaintance with mechanics and figures, and the nature of the materials he worked with, which was made easy to him by inborn inherited faculty--to get the mastery of his pen, and write a plain hand, to spell without any other mistakes than must in fairness be attributed to the unreasonable character of orthography rather than to any deficiency in the speller, and, moreover, to learn his musical notes and part-singing.

View in context

Though I have not seen much of the domestic lives of clergymen, it is seen by too many to leave any deficiency of information."

"Where any one body of educated men, of whatever denomination, are condemned indiscriminately, there must be a deficiency of information, or (smiling) of something else.

View in context

Nevertheless, Leviathan is of so mighty a magnitude, all his proportions are so stately, that the same deficiency which in the sculptured Jove were hideous, in him is no blemish at all.

View in context

One of the habits of his middle life was to walk through London, even the most crowded parts, 'as fast as other people walked, and reading a book a great deal faster than anybody else could read.' His remarkable endowments, however, were largely counterbalanced by his deficiency in the spiritual sense.

These specific limitations, it will be evident, are outgrowths of his great underlying deficiency--the deficiency in spiritual feeling and insight.

View in context

She hath married a gentleman, though perhaps not quite her equal in fortune; and if he hath any perfections in her eye which can make up that deficiency, I see no reason why I should object to her choice of her own happiness; which I, no more than herself, imagine to consist only in immense wealth.

View in context

Notwithstanding this willing concession of power on the part of Miss Emmerson, there was no deficiency in ability to judge between right and wrong in her character; but the homely nature of her good sense, unassisted by any confidence in her own powers, was unable to compete with the dazzling display of accomplishments which met her in every house where she visited; and if she sometimes thought that she could not always discover much of the useful amid this excess of the agreeable, she rather attributed the deficiency to her own ignorance than to any error in the new system of instruction.

View in context

Colonel Lloyd's slaves were in the habit of spend- ing a part of their nights and Sundays in fishing for oysters, and in this way made up the deficiency of their scanty allowance.

View in context

Noel Vanstone declared that he would take the whole responsibility of correcting this deficiency in the arrangements, on his own shoulders; he would not trouble Mr.