Reportedly deficient characteristic in vivid description (8)
I believe the answer is:
portrait
'vivid description' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'reportedly deficient characteristic' is the wordplay.
'reportedly' indicates a 'sounds like' (homophone) clue.
'deficient' becomes 'poor' (similar in meaning).
'characteristic' becomes 'trait' (a trait is a quality or characteristic).
'poor' sounds like 'por'.
'por'+'trait'='PORTRAIT'
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for portrait that I've seen before include "Person's picture" , "Artistic representation (of a person)" , "Image of a person" , "One picture" , "Depiction of person" .)