poverty
nounUK /ˈpɒvəti/ · US /ˈpɑːvɚti/
Etymology From Middle English poverte, from Old French poverté (Modern French pauvreté), from Latin paupertās, from pauper (“poor”) + -tas (“noun of state suffix”). Cognates include pauper, poor.
1
Usually The quality or state of being poor; lack of money
- get into poverty
- get out of poverty
3 more examples
- escape from poverty
- From there Prince Rupert, the Royalist general and nephew of Charles I, demanded over £2,000 from the mayor of Leicester to pay the king's forces who were camped around Queniborough. The mayor, however, pleaded poverty and sent only £500.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 329, about Queniborough:
- America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 11:
2
Usually A deficiency of something needed or desired
- poverty of soil
- poverty of the blood
1 more example
- poverty of spirit
- Synonyms
- beggary, brokeness, destitution, impecuniosity, impecuniousness, indigence, mendicancy, mendicity, misery, neediness, pauperism, penury, poverty, privation, reduced circumstances, straitened circumstances
- Antonyms
- abundance, decadence, lap of luxury, luxury, riches, richness, wanting for nothing, wealth, wealthiness
- Derived terms
26 terms
antipoverty, digital poverty, energy poverty, fuel poverty, furniture poverty, hygiene poverty, income poverty, nonpoverty, period poverty, poverty grass, poverty is a mindset, poverty is a state of mind, povertyism, poverty line, poverty of the stimulus, poverty poker, poverty porn, poverty-ridden, poverty-stricken, poverty-struck, poverty trap, povo, primary poverty, secondary poverty, transport poverty, ultrapoverty- Related terms
- impoverish, poor, poorness, aporophobia, broke-ass, hardship, have nothing to lose, keep the wolf from the door, possessionlessness, impoverished, pauper
- Hyponyms
- bankruptcy, insolvency