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.
As for threats, when you resort to them, you’re revealing you are uncertain of the sufficiency of your power.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 9, 2026
This dissent highlights genuine legal questions about the sufficiency of evidence and the interpretation of conspiracy laws in the Brazilian context.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 12, 2025
For many, the individualism and accumulation of the container kitchen is aspirational, a way of demonstrating plenitude and sufficiency regardless of your actual class position or relation to labor and ownership.
From Slate • Mar. 15, 2025
Earth Stewardship and Biocultural Diversity recognise these values but also stress relational values of nature or 'nature as society'; and Degrowth straddles these types of values, prioritising sufficiency and redistribution.
From Science Daily • May 17, 2024
Mom nodded at all our preparations; she’d always appreciated self- sufficiency.
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
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.
