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.