Adjacent Words

Deficit definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

DEFICIT, n. Want; deficiency; as a deficit in the taxes or revenue.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: 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: deficit, shortage, shortfall]
2: a deficiency or failure in neurological or mental functioning; "the people concerned have a deficit in verbal memory"; "they have serious linguistic deficits"
3: (sports) the score by which a team or individual is losing [ant: lead]
4: an excess of liabilities over assets (usually over a certain period); "last year there was a serious budgetary deficit"

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: French déficit, from Latin deficit it is wanting, 3d singular present indicative of deficere Date: 1782 1. a. (1) deficiency in amount or quality <a deficit in rainfall> (2) a lack or impairment in a functional capacity <cognitive deficits> <a hearing deficit> b. disadvantage <scored two runs to overcome a 2-1 deficit> 2. a. an excess of expenditure over revenue b. a loss in business operations

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 the amount by which a thing (esp. a sum of money) is too small. 2 an excess of liabilities over assets in a given period, esp. a financial year (opp. SURPLUS). Phrases and idioms: deficit financing financing of (esp. State) spending by borrowing. deficit spending spending, esp. by the State, financed by borrowing. Etymology: F déficit f. L deficit 3rd sing. pres. of deficere (as DEFECT)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Deficit Def"i*cit, n. [Lit., it is wanting, 3d person pres. indic. of L. deficere, cf. F. d['e]ficit. See Defect.] Deficiency in amount or quality; a falling short; lack; as, a deficit in taxes, revenue, etc. --Addison.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(deficits) Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. A deficit is the amount by which something is less than what is required or expected, especially the amount by which the total money received is less than the total money spent. They're ready to cut the federal budget deficit for the next fiscal year. N-COUNT: oft n N • If an account or organization is in deficit, more money has been spent than has been received. The current account of the balance of payments is in deficit. PHRASE: usu v-link PHR

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. [L.] Shortage. See deficiency.

Moby Thesaurus

absence, arrear, arrearage, arrears, back debts, back payments, balance, beggary, bouncing check, break, credit, decline, defalcation, default, defect, defectiveness, deferred payments, deficiency, deficit financing, delinquency, deprivation, destitution, difference, discontinuity, discrepancy, dollar gap, drought, epact, failure, falling short, famine, gap, hiatus, imperfection, impoverishment, inadequacy, incompleteness, inferiority, insufficiency, interval, lack, lacuna, loss, missing link, need, net, omission, outage, overdraft, remainder, scantiness, short measure, shortage, shortcoming, shortfall, slump, starvation, surplus, ullage, underage, want, wantage