sufficiency
Americannoun
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the state or fact of being sufficient; adequacy.
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a sufficient number or amount; enough.
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adequate provision or supply, especially of wealth.
noun
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the quality or condition of being sufficient
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an adequate amount or quantity, as of income
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archaic efficiency
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of sufficiency
1485–95; < Late Latin sufficientia; see sufficient, -ency
Explanation
A sufficiency is an adequate amount of something. Before a winter storm, you should probably make sure you have a sufficiency of food stored in your house. The noun sufficiency means the quality of being enough, adequate, or sufficient. Due to financial constraints, your local school district may be willing to settle for educational sufficiency, but hopefully you will hold the district to a higher standard than offering merely an adequate education to students. The opposite of sufficiency is insufficiency, meaning an inadequate amount. Of the two, you will likely hear insufficiency more often than sufficiency in conversation.
Vocabulary lists containing sufficiency
Skellig
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The Classical Period, c. 600 BCE to c. 600 CE
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2.1: Classical Empires in East Asia (Sources 1–8)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He said two other companies, from France and Hong Kong, also filed complaints about Sufficiency Economy City Co., which marketed gloves branded SkyMed.
From Seattle Times • Nov. 3, 2021
Under the existing Reading Sufficiency Act, third-graders take an annual state reading test.
From Washington Times • May 8, 2018
Friday’s announcement says the awards were part of the $32.5 million awarded around the nation through HUD’s Resident Opportunities and Self Sufficiency Service Coordinators Program.
From Washington Times • Dec. 26, 2016
Sufficiency was a word and a concept that had been commonplace among Western strategists for at least a decade.
From Time Magazine Archive
Carpenter was arrived there from the Coaſt of Guinea, having had 104 Days Paſſage, ten Days whereof they were without Meat, but had a Sufficiency of Rice and Corn.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
