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Showing results for pauperize. Search instead for pauper-bred.
Synonyms

pauperize

American  
[paw-puh-rahyz] / ˈpɔ pəˌraɪz /
especially British, pauperise

verb (used with object)

pauperized, pauperizing
  1. to make a pauper of.

    His extravagance pauperized him.


pauperize British  
/ ˈpɔːpəˌraɪz /

verb

  1. (tr) to make a pauper of; impoverish

"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

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Origin of pauperize

First recorded in 1825–35; pauper + -ize

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:

Arose Alexander R. Sheppard, great public spirit, great builder, to pave and light streets, lay sewers, plant trees, pauperize himself.

From Time Magazine Archive

Runaway price boosts might wipe out savings, pauperize individuals, bring down governments —but usually in only one or a few countries at any specific time, and for what seemed fairly clear reasons.

From Time Magazine Archive

We ought not to pauperize them at all.

From White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor by Banks, Louis Albert

You can pauperize me, and you can take away every rag I have on my back, too, if you want to, but I'll tell you one thing, you can't take away my independence.

From The Fifth Wheel A Novel by Prouty, Olive Higgins

There is nothing wholesome in the question whether it is better to pauperize people a little in the attic, or to pauperize them altogether in the almshouse.

From White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor by Banks, Louis Albert

"Citizens are being pauperized left, right and centre, why does the citizenry of this country deserve so uncaring & heartless a leadership?"

From BBC May 27, 2025

Iran, after all, is not the only Muslim country with an urban westernized elite that’s been decimated by dictatorship and pauperized by decades of war.

From New York Times Oct. 21, 2021

“Haiti was immediately quarantined and pauperized into the forced dysfunction of a postcolonial state,” literary scholar Nick Nesbitt has written, “hamstrung by the terrified slave-holding powers that then controlled the globe.”

From Washington Post Aug. 4, 2021

“Massive economic mismanagement coupled with spiraling corruption have pauperized large segments of the Arab people,” said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.

From Seattle Times Oct. 26, 2019

Amongst the middle classes he remains a canonized saint, the man who pauperized himself for their sakes.

From The Betrayal by Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)

Banks stopped giving out money, instantly pauperizing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, who couldn’t access their accounts even as they watched the value of their savings wither away.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 23, 2021

Three years ago it would have been hard to find one of them who would not have been ready to denounce the pauperizing effect of the dole.*

From Time Magazine Archive

But by humiliating and pauperizing Germany, the victors contributed to the conditions out of which Nazism arose.

From Time Magazine Archive

He recoups by stealing the family jewels of the cousin's fiance, pauperizing him in a single stroke and canceling the marriage vows.

From Time Magazine Archive

Gradual but certain withdrawal of support from national or State boards in order to avoid pauperizing communities by relieving them of their local financial responsibilities.

From Church Cooperation in Community Life by Vogt, Paul L. (Paul Leroy)

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