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"
guided by practical experience and observation rather than theory; "a hardheaded appraisal of our position"; "a hard-nosed labor leader"; "completely practical in his approach to business"; "not ideology but pragmatic politics"
unreasonably rigid in the face of argument or entreaty or attack