deficiency vs shortage

deficiency and shortage both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
deficiency	Yes	No	No	No
shortage	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, shortage is a hyponym of deficiency; that is, shortage is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than deficiency:

deficiency: lack of an adequate quantity or number
shortage: the property of being an amount by which something is less than expected or required

As nouns, shortage is a hyponym of deficiency; that is, shortage is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than deficiency:

Other hyponyms of deficiency include absence, dearth, famine, deficit, mineral deficiency, shortness, stringency, tightness.

deficiency (noun)	shortage (noun)
lack of an adequate quantity or number	the property of being an amount by which something is less than expected or required
the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable	an acute insufficiency