the act of subtracting (removing a part from the whole); "he complained about the subtraction of money from their paychecks"
an arithmetic operation in which the difference between two numbers is calculated; "the subtraction of three from four leaves one"; "four minus three equals one"
the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable; "there is a serious lack of insight into the problem"; "water is the critical deficiency in desert regions"; "for want of a nail the shoe was lost"