Shortage

(n.) Amount or extent of deficiency, as determined by some requirement or standard; as, a shortage in money accounts.

Thesaurus Entries

absence, adulteration, arrear, arrearage, arrears, beggary, break, curtailment, dearth, decline, defalcation, default, defect, defectibility, defectiveness, deficiency, deficit, delinquency, deprivation, destitution, discontinuity, drought, erroneousness, failure, fallibility, falling short, famine, faultiness, gap, hiatus, immaturity, impairment, imperfection, impoverishment, impurity, inaccuracy, inadequacy, inadequateness, incompleteness, inexactitude, inexactness, inferiority, insufficiency, interval, lack, lacuna, mediocrity, missing link, need, omission, outage, patchiness, paucity, pinch, scantiness, scarcity, short measure, shortcoming, shortfall, sketchiness, slump, starvation, tightness, ullage, underage, undevelopment, unevenness, unperfectedness, unsoundness, want, wantage