POVERTY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Poverty

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/pˈɑvərti/ Listen

noun

Poverty n.

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

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.

Synonyms: 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.

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Etymology of 'Poverty'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Poverty" Quotes from Famous Books

... his intellect. His wickedness is not exhibited in the making. He is so completely and gleefully a villain from the first, that he is not restrained from convenient crime by any scruples and relentings. The vigor of his will is due to his poverty of feeling and conscience. He is a brilliant and efficient criminal because he is shorn of the noblest attributes of man. Put, if you could, Macbeth's heart and imagination into him, and his will would be smitten with impotence, and his ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... given in support of evolution, reveal a great poverty of facts and logic. An instantaneous photograph of an "infant, three weeks old, supporting its own weight for over two minutes," is given by Romanes as a proof that man is descended from a simian (ape-like) ancestor. As this same picture ...

— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams

... collections ought to be separately mentioned. Stow had died in great poverty, and indeed had been for many years a licensed beggar or bedesman; but in his youth he had been enabled by Parker's protection to make a good collection out of the spoils of the Abbeys; during the Elizabethan persecution he was nearly convicted ...

— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... attendant. Paul accepted the generosity of these loyal hearts, though in other places he would work his fingers to the bone and forego his natural rest rather than accept similar favors. Nor was their willingness to give due to superior wealth. On the contrary, they gave out of deep poverty. They were poor to begin with, and they were made poorer by the persecutions which they had to endure. These were very severe after Paul left, and they lasted long. Of course they had broken first of all on Paul himself. Though ...

— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... under his own notice. Cromwell too had pointed out that such corruptions did incalculable evil; and that an immoral monk did far more harm in a countryside than his holy brethren could do of good. Both had said a word too about the luxury and riches to be found in the houses of those who professed poverty, and of the injury done to Christ's holy religion by ...

— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

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