The Collaborative International Dictionary
Deficiency of a curve
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.