Deficient

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: de=fi=cient

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Deficient, adj.
1 (usu. foll. by in) incomplete; not having enough of a specified quality or ingredient.
2 insufficient in quantity, force, etc.
3 (in full mentally deficient) incapable of adequate social or intellectual behaviour through imperfect mental development.

Derivative

deficiently adv.

Etymology

L deficiens part. of deficere (as DEFECT)

THESAURUS

Deficient

adulterated, amiss, arrested, bad, base, blemished, botched, bungling, callow, clumsy, damaged, defective, embryonic, erroneous, failing, fallible, faulty, flawed, found wanting, half-assed, haphazard, hit-and-miss, hit-or-miss, hypoplastic, immature, impaired, imperfect, imprecise, impure, in arrear, in arrears, in default, in short supply, in want of, inaccurate, inadequate, incompetent, incomplete, inexact, infant, inferior, infrequent, injured, insufficient, lacking, little, makeshift, maladroit, marred, mean, mediocre, messy, minus, missing, mixed, needing, not comparable, not enough, not in it, not perfect, off, out of it, part, partial, patchy, petty, promiscuous, rare, scant, scanty, scarce, scrappy, scrimpy, shabby, short, short of, shy, sketchy, skimpy, slipshod, slipshoddy, sloppy, slovenly, sluttish, small, too little, trivial, uncommon, underdeveloped, undeveloped, unequal to, uneven, unfinished, unperfected, unqualified, unreached, unsatisfactory, unsatisfying, unskillful, unsound, unsufficing, unthorough, untidy, wanting

ROGET THESAURUS

Deficient

Insufficiency

N insufficiency, inadequacy, inadequateness, incompetence, deficiency, imperfection, shortcoming, paucity, stint, scantiness, none to spare, bare subsistence, scarcity, dearth, want, need, lack, poverty, exigency, inanition, starvation, famine, drought, dole, mite, pittance, short allowance, short commons, half rations, banyan day, emptiness, poorness, depletion, vacancy, flaccidity, ebb tide, low water, a beggarly account of empty boxes, indigence, insolvency, drain of resources, impoverish, stint, put on short allowance, do insufficiently, scotch the snake, Adj, insufficient, inadequate, too little, not enough, unequal to, incompetent, weighed in the balance and found wanting, perfunctory, deficient, wanting imperfect, ill-furnished, ill-provided, ill- stored, ill-off, slack, at a low ebb, empty, vacant, bare, short of, out of, destitute of, devoid of, bereft of, denuded of, dry, drained, unprovided, unsupplied, unfurnished, unreplenished, unfed, unstored, untreasured, empty-handed, meager, poor, thin, scrimp, sparing, spare, stinted, starved, starving, halfstarved, famine-stricken, famished, jejune, scant, scarce, not to be had, not to be had for love or money, not to be had at any price, scurvy, stingy, at the end of one's tether, without resources, in want, in debt, insufficiently, in default of, for want of, failing, semper avarus eget.

Imperfection

N imperfection, imperfectness, deficiency, inadequacy, peccancy, immaturity, fault, defect, weak point, screw loose, flaw, gap, twist, taint, attainder, bar sinister, hole in one's coat, blemish, weakness, half blood, shortcoming, drawback, seamy side, mediocrity, no great shakes, no great catch, not much to boast of, one-horse shay, imperfect, not perfect, deficient, defective, faulty, unsound, tainted, out of order, out of tune, cracked, leaky, sprung, warped, lame, injured, peccant, frail, inadequate, crude, incomplete, found wanting, below par, short-handed, below its full strength, under its full strength, below its full complement, indifferent, middling, ordinary, mediocre, average, so-so, coucicouci, milk and water, tolerable, fair, passable, pretty well, pretty good, rather good, moderately good, good, good enough, well enough, adequate, decent, not bad, not amiss, inobjectionable, unobjectionable, admissible, bearable, only better than nothing, secondary, inferior, second-rate, second-best, one-horse, almost, to a limited extent, rather, pretty, moderately, passing, only, considering, all things considered, enough, surgit amari aliquid.

Inferiority

N inferiority, minority, subordinacy, shortcoming, deficiency, minimum, smallness, imperfection, lower quality, lower worth, commonalty, inferior, smaller, small, minor, less, lesser, deficient, minus, lower, subordinate, secondary, secondrate, sub, subaltern, thrown into the shade, weighed in the balance and found wanting, not fit to hold a candle to, can't hold a candle to, least, smallest &c (little) (small), lowest, diminished, reduced, unimportant, less, under the mark, below the mark, below par, at the bottom of the scale, at a low ebb, at a disadvantage, short of, under.

Incompleteness

N incompleteness, deficiency, short measure, shortcoming, insufficiency, imperfection, immaturity, half measures, defect, deficit, defalcation, omission, caret, shortage, interval, break, noncompletion, missing link, missing piece, missing part, gap, hole, lacuna, incomplete, imperfect, unfinished, uncompleted &c (complete), defective, deficient, wanting, lacking, failing, in default, in arrear, short of, hollow, meager, lame, halfand-half, perfunctory, sketchy, crude, mutilated, garbled, docked, lopped, truncated, in progress, in hand, going on, proceeding, incompletely, by halves, caetera desunt, caret.

Shortcoming

N shortcoming, failure, falling short, default, defalcation, leeway, labor in vain, no go, incompleteness, imperfection, insufficiency, noncompletion, failure, unreached, deficient, short, short of, minus, out of depth, perfunctory, within the mark, within the compass, within the bounds, behindhand, re infecta, to no purpose, for from it, the bubble burst.