deficient

From Latin deficiens, present participle of deficere (“to lack, fail, be wanting”); see defect.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈfɪʃənt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪʃənt

deficient (comparative more deficient, superlative most deficient)

1. Lacking something essential; often construed with in.

   They were deficient in social skills.

2. Insufficient or inadequate in amount.
   • 1882, Edward Tuckerman, ‎Henry Willey, A Synopsis of the North American Lichens (part 1)

     Apothecia lecanoroid; multilocular; each cell containing a single theke; paraphyses deficient.

3. (mathematics) Of a number n, Having the sum of divisors σ(n)<2n, or, equivalently, the sum of proper divisors (or aliquot sum) s(n)<n.

deficient (plural deficients)

1. A person who is deficient.
   • 2004, Steven Noll, James Trent, Mental Retardation in America: A Historical Reader, page 316:

     This was justified by the rationale that mental deficients, by definition, are not able to succeed in society.

• “deficient”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “deficient”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Borrowed from Latin dēficientem.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [də.fi.siˈen]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [də.fi.siˈent]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [de.fi.siˈent]

deficient m or f (masculine and feminine plural deficients)

1. deficient

• deficiència

• “deficient”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007

dēficient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of dēficiō

Borrowed from French déficient.

deficient m or n (feminine singular deficientă, masculine plural deficienți, feminine and neuter plural deficiente)

1. deficient