dirt poor
lacking nearly all material means or resources for living.
Origin of dirt poor
1Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use dirt poor in a sentence
The family had grown up dirt-poor, sharecropping the 20,000 acres of cotton that stretched out below Sand Mountain.
They are poor; “dirt poor” is no exaggeration, for their land has been depleted by cotton farming and untilled for seven years.
American Dreams: ‘Tobacco Road’ by Erskine Caldwell | Nathaniel Rich | April 30, 2012 | THE DAILY BEAST“I considered it a gesture of good will because these people are so dirt poor,” said Stidham.
‘Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory’: Its Road to the Academy Awards | Lorenza Muñoz | February 22, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTShe had grown up dirt poor in the rural South, and her whole life trajectory had been a kind of fairy tale.
British Dictionary definitions for dirt-poor
mainly US extremely poor
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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