something that causes or entails suffering; "I cannot think it a hardship that more indulgence is allowed to men than to women"- James Boswell; "the many hardships of frontier life"
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"
anything indispensable; "food and shelter are necessities of life"; "the essentials of the good life"; "allow farmers to buy their requirements under favorable conditions"; "a place where the requisites of water fuel and fodder can be obtained"
marked by deprivation especially of the necessities of life or healthful environmental influences; "a childhood that was unhappy and deprived, the family living off charity"; "boys from a deprived environment, wherein the family life revealed a pattern of neglect, moral degradation, and disregard for law"