impoverish
Americanverb (used with object)
-
impoverishes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
impoverished,
past participle, past
-
impoverishing
present participle
verb
-
to make poor or diminish the quality of
to impoverish society by cutting the grant to the arts
-
to deprive (soil, etc) of fertility
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
impoverishsimple
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impoverishessimple
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have impoverishedperfect
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has impoverishedperfect
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am impoverishingprogressive
-
are impoverishingprogressive
-
is impoverishingprogressive
-
have been impoverishingperfect progressive
-
has been impoverishingperfect progressive
Past
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impoverishedsimple
-
had impoverishedperfect
-
was impoverishingprogressive
-
were impoverishingprogressive
-
had been impoverishingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of impoverish
1400–50; late Middle English empoverishen < Middle French empovriss- (long stem of empovrir ), equivalent to em- em- 1 + povre poor + -iss -ish 2
Explanation
To impoverish is to take away a person's livelihood. When a drought ruins a farmer's crop and he has nothing to harvest, his bad luck may leave him and his family impoverished, or poor. The Latin prefix in- is changed to im when in front of a word starting with the letter p-, but its meaning "in" or "into" stays the same. With roots in the French word povre meaning "poor," impoverish means to make poor or drive someone "into poverty." The 2010 earthquake in Haiti left over a million people impoverished, destroying everything they owned.
Vocabulary lists containing impoverish
The Suffix -ish, Part 2
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4.3: Origins and Impact of the Western European Empires in the North Atlantic (Sources 1–9)
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1970 Nobel Peace Prize Speech: “One Word of Truth Outweighs the World” by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
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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:
The Luddite movement, which predated the Swing Riots, was led by textile workers convinced that power-operated looms would permanently impoverish the middle class.
From Barron's ● Feb. 25, 2026
Botswana's president Mokgweetsi Masisi told German media this would only impoverish Botswanans.
From BBC ● Apr. 2, 2024
Those who fear ideas, as well as those who view life as mostly transaction, impoverish themselves and our society.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 31, 2023
Niger relies heavily on foreign aid, and sanctions could further impoverish its more than 25 million people.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 1, 2023
He was, with Lords Castlereagh and Sidmouth, the author of many plans to perplex, impoverish, and subdue the people, in which plans the bishops most zealously assisted.
From Secret History of the Court of England, from the Accession of George the Third to the Death of George the Fourth, Volume I (of 2) Including, Among Other Important Matters, Full Particulars of the Mysterious Death of the Princess Charlotte by Lady Anne Hamilton
But soil drainage gradually impoverishes the land, posing a threat to local farmers and releasing the CO2 captured by the peatland which are important carbon sinks.
From Barron's ● Oct. 31, 2025
"This debate impoverishes democracy. It's a scrappy debate, in which you provoke, you use debauchery, you joke around," said Janones, who denied accusations that he uses fake news.
From Reuters ● Nov. 10, 2022
But the semantic shift impoverishes our ethical vocabulary.
From Salon ● Apr. 14, 2014
Because this culture of greed impoverishes all of us, it is, to call it by its true name, destruction.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 29, 2012
Both rest on the principle called Balance of Trade; the formula of which is: "A people impoverishes itself when it imports, and enriches itself when it exports."
From What Is Free Trade? An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Éconimiques" Designed for the American Reader by Frédéric Bastiat
Pruett, who gave birth to Landers’ father, Corky, at 15, had a tough and impoverished youth.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
He was the genuine artifact, the son of an impoverished Minnesota miner; a lumberjack and a steelworker in his youth.
From Slate ● Sep. 18, 2026
It also called for "economic stabilisation" in the impoverished country, which "might narrow the pool from which footsoldiers are drawn".
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
Outside music, her philanthropy gave scholarships to impoverished students and supplied more than 200 million books to young readers.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
But its exuberant canopy is a mask covering an impoverished base.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Pete Rodriguez, the brotherhood’s western district vice president, called the proposal “outrageous” and suggested it could worsen the homelessness crisis by impoverishing workers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2024
The economic decisions that enriched some people while impoverishing others were made in distant cities and, for the most part, in foreign languages, and few people could discern their origins.
From Scientific American ● May 31, 2023
Independence came at a tremendous cost, however, since France forced the new republic to pay steep indemnities to compensate French citizens for their property losses for many years, impoverishing the new nation.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
“But in the longer term, only deeper reforms can prevent slower growth and increasing inequality, an impoverishing combination the region has not seen this century.”
From Reuters ● Sep. 28, 2021
In a lightning-flash there passed before him a vision of years of litigation, draining his resources and impoverishing his estate—and that even should things not come to the worst.
From Golden Face A Tale of the Wild West by Bertram Mitford
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.
