What does under-stoichiometric or stoichiometric mean?
Yes, the convention is to refer to the oxygen atoms when talking about over- and under-stoichiometric in metaloxides. Normally they also indicate this explicitly by writing $\ce {SiO}_x$ (like in the article here for example) or $\ce {Al_2O}_x$. Being explicit about it is a good habit because it avoids ambiguity.