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