Privation n.
Etymology: [L. privatio: cf. F. privation. See Private.]
1. The act of depriving, or taking away; hence, the depriving of rank or office; degradation in rank; deprivation. Bacon.
2. The state of being deprived or destitute of something, especially of something required or desired; destitution; need; as, to undergo severe privations.
3. The condition of being absent; absence; negation. Evil will be known by consequence, as being only a privation, or absence, of good. South. Privation mere of light and absent day. Milton.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for privation; he lists it under poverty.
Where he writes about it:
Poverty denotes strictly lack of property or adequate means of support, but in common use is a relative term denoting any condition below that of easy, comfortable living; privation denotes a condition of painful lack of what is useful or desirable, tho not to the extent of absolute distress; indigence is lack of ordinary means of subsistence; destitution is lack of the comforts, and in part even of the necessaries of life; penury is especially cramping poverty, possibly not so sharp as destitution, but continuous, while that may be temporary; pauperism is such destitution as throws one upon organized public charity for support; beggary and mendicancy denote poverty that appeals for indiscriminate private charity. — from poverty
Antonyms
none given