The state of needing something that is absent or unavailable

Usage examples of deficiency.

It requires an abler pen than mine to trace the connection which I am persuaded exists between these deficiencies and the minds and manners of the people.

Deficiency of oxygen is the cause of apnoea, and sometimes the red corpuscles themselves are so few, worn out, or destroyed, that they cannot carry sufficient oxygen, and the consequence is that the patient becomes short of breath, and when a fatal degeneration of the corpuscles ensues, he dies of asphyxia.

It was not the way of Sharp to fall back, in this deficiency of experience, on old legends and folk-tales collected in his own day, but to trust to his imagination as that was quickened by what knowledge he had of life in the inner isles and in Argyllshire, and by the very atmosphere of known places there that seemed to demand, as Stevenson put it, to have stories invented to fit them.

And bringing a ballcarrier down by dragging at the breechcloth was supposed to be outside the pale, but when it was done and resulted in a man revealed in all his deficiency, great hilarity ensued both in the crowd and among the players.

The deficiency is sometimes so subtle biochemically that it defies easy test.

In the present attempt to render into English this portion of the works of Clausewitz, the translator is sensible of many deficiencies, but he hopes at all events to succeed in making this celebrated treatise better known in England, believing, as he does, that so far as the work concerns the interests of this country, it has lost none of the importance it possessed at the time of its first publication.

The silver salmon or cohoe arrives a little later than the sockeye, but is not much used for packing except when required to make up deficiencies.

It was the kind of atmosphere that could seem either contrived and fakey, or just pleasantly and comfortably old-fashioned, depending on the skill with which it was handled and whether or not it was used to cover up deficiencies in the culinary department.

If this is not satisfactory repeat the assay, adding an extra gram of nitre for each 4 grams of lead in excess of that required, or 1 gram of flour for a 12-gram deficiency.

Should any defect or deficiency in the arrangement for giving a full supply to the guns be discovered, it is to be reported immediately to the Captain, in order that a remedy may be applied as speedily as possible, by additional men or other proper means.

He feels that the absence of appropriate cuts to depict the various herbs is quite a deficiency: but the hope is inspired that a still future Edition may serve to supply this need.

Peter Hofmeister and divers others of the magnates of the canton, were particularly loud in their plaudits on this repetition of the games, for, by a process that will be easily understood, they, who had been revelling and taking their potations in the marquees and booths while the mummers were absent, were more than qualified to supply the deficiencies of the actors by the warmth and exuberance of their own warmed imaginations.

With AIDS, you get HIV-Human ImmunoDeficiency Virus-and then maybe a few years later, it blossoms into full-blown Advanced Immune Deficiency Syndrome, putting the sufferer at risk for contracting fatal cancers or flus.

We may also adopt the ancient division of relatives into creative principles, measures, excesses and deficiencies, and those which in general separate objects on the basis of similarities and differences.

I would rather entreat each and every one of them to immortalize this approaching, fateful hour in the evolution of a World Spiritual Crusade, by a fresh consecration to their God-given mission, coupled with an instantaneous plan of action, at once so dynamic and decisive, as to wipe out, on the one hand, with one stroke, the deficiencies which have, to no small extent, bogged down the operations of the Crusade on the home front, and tremendously accelerate, on the other, the progress of the triple task, launched, in three continents, and constituting one of its preeminent objectives.