The DICT Development Group

  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.
     [1913 Webster]

  deficit
      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"

  62 Moby Thesaurus words for "deficit":
     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
  
  

  DEFICIT. This Latin term signifies that something is wanting. It is used to 
  express the deficiency which is discovered in the accounts of an accountant, 
  or in the money in which he has received.