deficiency vs shortness

deficiency and shortness both are nouns.

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

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

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

deficiency (noun)	shortness (noun)
lack of an adequate quantity or number	an abrupt discourteous manner
the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable	the property of being shorter than average stature
	the property of being of short temporal extent
	the property of being of short spatial extent
	the property of being truncated or short
	the condition of being short of something