insufficiency
/ɪnsəˈfɪʃ(ə)nsi
/noun (plural insufficiencies) [mass noun]
1The condition of being insufficient: insufficiency of adequate housing [count noun]: there have been demands to redress such insufficiencies...
- They should listen to and correct the players' insufficiencies.
- He defended German culture against its political appropriation by the Prussian and Austrian regimes, but criticized its insufficiencies, in Goethe, for example, who remained enthralled to the metaphysical tradition.
- Along with such developments, Valéry also addresses the question of the insufficiencies of literature stating among other things that ‘nothing has been written about love.’
Synonyms
lack, inadequacy, shortage, want, dearth, deficit, shortfall;
scarcity, scarceness, scantiness, paucity, absence, undersupply, sparseness, deprivation, meagreness, shortness
rare exiguity, exiguousness
1.1 Medicine The inability of an organ to perform its normal function: renal insufficiency...
- Methylergonovine should be used with caution, if at all, in patients with cardiac or peripheral vascular disease, or hepatic or renal insufficiency.
- As with other oral contraceptives, this product is contraindicated in women who have renal or hepatic insufficiency.
- No specific dosage adjustments are recommended for patients with hepatic or renal insufficiency because of the drug's minimal systemic absorption.
Origin
Early 16th century (in the sense 'incompetence, inability'): from late Latin insufficientia, from in- 'not' + Latin sufficere 'be sufficient'.