deficiency

== English == === Etymology === From deficient +‎ -cy. Compare Latin dēficientia. === Pronunciation === IPA(key): /dɪˈfɪʃənsi/ Hyphenation: de‧fi‧cien‧cy === Noun === deficiency (countable and uncountable, plural deficiencies) (uncountable) Inadequacy or incompleteness. Synonyms: lack, lacking, lackingness, want Antonyms: sufficiency, plenty, plentitude, plenitude, excess, surfeit (countable) An insufficiency, especially of something essential to health. Synonyms: lack, lacking, want, shortage Antonyms: sufficiency, excess, surfeit (geometry) The amount by which the number of double points on a curve is short of the maximum for curves of the same degree. (geometry) The codimension of a linear system in the corresponding complete linear system. ==== Usage notes ==== In the context of dietary reference intake amounts for micronutrients, a precise usage distinction is often made whereby deficiency is a separate and more severe category that is coordinate with insufficiency. A common example is a widely used convention for cutoff value of vitamin D level in human blood, which defines less than 30 nanograms per milliliter as insufficient and less than 20 nanograms per milliliter (even worse) as deficient. In broad usage, though, the words are synonymous. ==== Derived terms ==== ==== Translations ==== === Further reading === deficiency on Wikipedia.Wikipedia