POVERTY

poverty, poorness, impoverishment

(noun) the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions

Source: WordNet® 3.1

Etymology

Noun

poverty (usually uncountable, plural poverties)

The quality or state of being poor; lack of money

Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or desired, or that constitute richness

Synonyms

• See also poverty

Antonyms

• See also wealth

Source: Wiktionary

Pov"er*ty, n. Etym: [OE. poverte, OF. poverté, F. pauvreté, fr. L. paupertas, fr. pauper poor. See Poor.]

1. The quality or state of being poor or indigent; want or scarcity of means of subsistence; indigence; need. "Swathed in numblest poverty." Keble. The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty. Prov. xxiii. 21.

2. Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or desired, or that constitute richness; as, poverty of soil; poverty of the blood; poverty of ideas. Poverty grass (Bot.), a name given to several slender grasses (as Aristida dichotoma, and Danthonia spicata) which often spring up on old and worn-out fields.

Syn.

– Indigence; penury; beggary; need; lack; want; scantiness; sparingness; meagerness; jejuneness. Poverty, Indigence, Pauperism. Poverty is a relative term; what is poverty to a monarch, would be competence for a day laborer. Indigence implies extreme distress, and almost absolute destitution. Pauperism denotes entire dependence upon public charity, and, therefore, often a hopeless and degraded state.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition