dirt poor
adjective
lacking nearly all material means or resources for living.
dirt poor
Americanadjective
dirt-poor
British
adjective
Etymology
Origin of dirt poor
An Americanism dating back to 1935–40
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“We were dirt poor so I couldn’t afford to go to the movies often,” he told the AP in 1998.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 30, 2023
He had grown up dirt poor in what is now South Korea, then occupied by Japan.
From Science Magazine ● May 3, 2023
"Patients who were put in there were dirt poor," said Clare Blackmore, one of the volunteers.
From BBC ● Feb. 26, 2023
She says she grew up dirt poor on a pig farm in Alabama, but rose to be the first in her family to complete college, and she served in the armed forces reserves.
From Slate ● May 15, 2022
The problem was that her family was dirt poor.
From "I Will Always Write Back" by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda
They were dirt-poor immigrants who spoke no English in a new country.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
Colombia's anti -narcotics strategy targets those at the top of the cocaine trade, not the dirt-poor farmers at the bottom.
From BBC ● Feb. 3, 2026
The songs include “Busted,” the story of a dirt-poor farmer bemoaning his overdue bills, crop failures, and other financial woes while maintaining a sense of hope for the future.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 27, 2023
Growing up in the south of the Philippines, Pacquiao's family was dirt-poor, prompting him to do odd jobs to survive.
From Reuters ● Sep. 29, 2021
Mom told me I should tell them there was nothing wrong with being poor, that Abraham Lincoln, the greatest president this country had ever seen, came from a dirt-poor family.
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
