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
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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
Niger relies heavily on foreign aid, and sanctions could further impoverish its more than 25 million people.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 1, 2023
Niger relies heavily on foreign aid and sanctions could further impoverish its more than 25 million people.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 31, 2023
We must forego no noble expression of idealistic faith, lest we impoverish our own souls, and beggar those who come after us.
From Atlantic Classics by Various
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
There is an uncouth spirit of self-aggression which, while it wounds and impoverishes others, destroys its finest spiritual furniture in its own ungodly heat.
From My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year by John Henry Jowett
His impoverished immigrant household, and especially his mother, prioritized work over education.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2026
Bringing more of that metal into the mainstream could improve conditions for impoverished miners and increase lawful supplies at a time of near-record prices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 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
The outages which have sometimes lasted 12 to 48 hours have plunged those living in the deeply impoverished country into steaming darkness at night.
From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026
For the other eight months he returned to the central plateau of Haiti, doctoring impoverished patients, many of whom had lost their land to a government hydroelectric dam project.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
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
The suspect in the killing, 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, accused the church of impoverishing his family, according to police.
From Reuters ● Sep. 7, 2022
In impoverishing the mixture to meet the needs of high pressures, the explosive power is not increased and in practice hardly exceeds 365 to 427 pounds per square inch.
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
