the property of being an amount by which something is less than expected or required; new blood vessels bud out from the already dilated vascular bed to make up the nutritional deficit

[ Syn: shortage , shortfall ]

a deficiency or failure in neurological or mental functioning; the people concerned have a deficit in verbal memory; they have serious linguistic deficits'

(sports) the score by which a team or individual is losing

an excess of liabilities over assets (usually over a certain period); last year there was a serious budgetary deficit'