deficiency disease

nounPathology.

any illness associated with an insufficient supply of one or more essential dietary constituents.

Origin of deficiency disease

First recorded in 1910–15

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use deficiency disease in a sentence

Dr. Chiara, who had collapsed while driving himself on to care for the sick, was sure it was a deficiency disease.
Space Prison | Tom Godwin
It was an amount amazingly large and many of the items had presumably been exhausted during the deficiency disease attack.
Space Prison | Tom Godwin
Nothing could be more incongruous than the occurrence of a deficiency disease in this land of plenty.
Scurvy Past and Present | Alfred Fabian Hess
Medical men thought it was a deficiency disease, but they had not traced down the deficiency responsible.
Wind | Charles Louis Fontenay

British Dictionary definitions for deficiency disease

deficiency disease

noun

med any condition, such as pellagra, beriberi, or scurvy, produced by a lack of vitamins or other essential substances: Compare avitaminosis
botany any disease caused by lack of essential minerals

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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