deficient, a. and n.
(dɪˈfɪʃənt)
[ad. L. dēficient-em, pr. pple. of dēficĕre to fail, orig. to undo, do away, take oneself away, leave, forsake; f. de- I. 6 + facĕre to make, do. Cf. mod.F. déficient (1754 in Hatzf.).]
A. adj.
1. a. Wanting some part, element, constituent, or characteristic which is necessary to completeness, or having less than the proper amount of it; wanting or falling short in something; defective.
| 1604 Shakes. Oth. i. iii. 63 Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense. 1632 Lithgow Trav. A iv, Howsoever the Gift, and the Giver be deficient. 1651 T. Rudd Euclide A iv, The [Manuscript] Copie, in many places, was deficient. 1659 O. Walker Oratory 32 Latine words (where our language is deficient) Englished. 1663 Cowley Disc. Govt. O. Cromwell (1669) 74 In the point of murder..we have little reason to think that our late Tyranny has been deficient to the examples..set it in other Countreys. 1713 Steele Englishman No. 19. 121 We find our selves deficient in any thing else sooner than in our Understanding. 1758 Johnson Idler No. 72 ¶1 Men complain..of deficient memory. 1861 F. Nightingale Nursing 5 The best women are wofully deficient in knowledge about health. 1891 Law Times XCII. 94/1 Milk which on analysis proved to be deficient in fatty matter to the extent of about 33 per cent. |
† b. Gram. = defective a. 5. Obs. c. Arith. deficient number: a number the sum of whose factors is less than the number itself. d. Geom. deficient hyperbola: a cubic curve having only one asymptote. † e. Mus. Applied to any interval diminished by a comma. Obs.
| 1727–51 Chambers Cycl., Defective, or Deficient Nouns, in grammar. Ibid., Deficient Hyperbola. Ibid., Deficient numbers..Such, e.gr. is 8; whose quota parts are, 1, 2, and 4; which, together, only make 7. 1753 Ibid., Supp. s.v. Interval, Limma of the Greek Scale, or deficient Semi-tone Major. |
2. Present in less than the proper quantity; not of sufficient force; wholly or partly wanting or lacking; insufficient, inadequate.
| 1632 J. Hayward tr. Biondi's Eromena 14 Meere conjectures were deficient because the meanes (whereby to conjecture) were wanting. 1663 Cowley Disc. Govt. O. Cromwell (1669) 70 If I should say, that personal kind of courage had been deficient in the man. 1748 Anson's Voy. iii. iv. 333 Apprehensions that our stock of water might prove deficient. 1856 Emerson Eng. Traits, Lit. Wks. (Bohn) II. 109 Hallam is uniformly polite, but with deficient sympathy. 1881 Maxwell Electr. & Magn. I. 40 The quantity of fluid which would be required to saturate it is sometimes called the Deficient fluid. |
† 3. deficient cause: that ‘deficience’, failure to act, or absence of anything, which becomes the cause or negative condition of some result. Obs.
The conception and the phrase (causa deficiens) appear first in St. Augustine, in his discussion of the origin of evil and of God's relation to it, and are connected with his doctrine that evil being nothing positive, but merely a defect, could have no efficient, but only a deficient cause. It was also used by Thomas Aquinas (who distinguished the physical sense of the phrase from the moral); in English it came into vogue during the Calvinistic-Arminian controversy in 16–17th c., in reference both to the origin of evil and to the reprobation of the wicked. Cf. defective a. 6.
[St. August. De Civ. Dei xii. vii, Nemo igitur quærat efficientem caussam malæ voluntatis, non enim est efficiens, sed deficiens; quia nec illa effectio est, sed defectio; deficere namque ab eo quod summum est, ad id quod minus est, hoc est incipere habere voluntatem malam.]
| 1581 J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 204 And hereof commeth the destruction of the reprobates..y⊇ efficient cause wherof consisteth truely in every of their own corruption, but the cause deficient in the will of God. 1598 R. Barckley Felic. Man (1631) 666 It [the cause of evil and sin] is no efficient but a deficient cause. 1658 L. Womock Exam. Tilenus 40 There are sins of omission..and if the deficient cause in things necessary be the efficient, you know to whom such sins are to be imputed. 1677 Gale Crt. Gentiles iv. ii. vi. §3. 380 As for moral evil he [God] is not the author or cause thereof as it is evil: because moral evils as such have no efficient cause but only deficient. 1678 Ibid. iv. iii. vi. 195 Gods concurse is neither the efficient nor deficient cause of sin. |
† 4. Failing, fainting; of or pertaining to swooning. Obs.
| 1605 Shakes. Lear iv. vi. 23 Ile looke no more, Least my braine turne, and the deficient sight Topple downe headlong. 1632 Lithgow Trav. x. 438 A..giddy headed Foole, (full of deficient Vapours). |
B. n.
† 1. a. Something that is wanting, or absent where it should be present. b. The want or absence of something; a deficiency. Obs.
| 1640 G. Watts tr. Bacon's Adv. Learn. Pref. 23 To set down more than the naked Titles, or brief Arguments of Deficients. 1660 Sharrock Vegetables 1 Lord Bacon..reckons it among the Deficients of Natural History. 1686 Wilding in Collect. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.) I. 263 To y⊇ mercer for deficients to my new suit. |
† 2. Gram. A defective noun. Obs.
| 1647 Ward Simp. Cobler 25 Like the Quæ Genus in the Grammer, being Deficients, or Redundants, not to be brought under any Rule. |
† 3. A person who fails to do what is required; a defaulter. Obs.
| 1697 Col. Rec. Pennsylv. I. 521 Y⊇ Collectors had neither brought in the Monies they had Received, nor y⊇ names of the deficients. 1719 Ayr Presbyt. Rec. in Ch. Life Scotl. (1885) I. i. 22 note, The deficients have all engadged to do it. |
4. = defective n. 2 c.
| 1906 F. Thoresby in Westm. Rev. Jan. 39 There are the deficients, i.e., those who from, or before birth, or by reason of their rearing, or both, never have..a fair start. 1927 Carr-Saunders & Jones Soc. Struct. Eng. & Wales 213 [Authorities] vary notoriously... Some are active, while others close their eyes to the existence of deficients within their areas. |