Emily Dickinson Lexicon

DE-FI'CIENT, a.

1. Wanting; defective; imperfect; not sufficient or adequate; as, deficient estate; deficient strength.
2. Wanting; not having a full or adequate supply; as, the country may be deficient in the means of carrying on war. Deficient numbers, in arithmetic, are those numbers, whose parts, added together, make less than the integer, whose parts they are. – Johnson.