pauper
Americannoun
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paupers
plural
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a person without any means of support, especially a destitute person who depends on aid from public welfare funds or charity.
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a very poor person.
noun
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a person who is extremely poor
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(formerly) a destitute person supported by public charity
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of pauper
1485–95; < Latin: poor
Explanation
Pauper is an old-fashioned word for someone who is poor — really poor, like the paupers described by Charles Dickens or Mark Twain. The noun pauper has been around for over 500 years, but today, the word tends to mostly crop up in literature. If people use it in conversation, they tend to use the word self-deprecatingly. "I'm sorry, I can't afford to go with you to the movies. I'm living like a pauper this week, until I get paid."
Vocabulary lists containing pauper
"The Odyssey" by Homer, Books 1–7
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"A Rose for Emily"
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Broke-abulary: Synonyms for "Poor"
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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:
However, this nomad only looked like a pauper.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 26, 2026
It also helped that Crawford was not exactly a pauper and got only marginally outspent in a race that saw over $107 million in expenditures.
From Slate ● Apr. 3, 2025
Gi-hun, meanwhile, is living like a pauper, holed up in an empty fleabag hotel he owns and refusing to spend any of the fortune he’d won on himself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 26, 2024
"The consequences of this ruling and the upcoming trial, while not making him a pauper, will significantly reduce his net worth."
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2023
It would be just like his father, Martin thought, to comport himself like a pauper while hiding a fortune.
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
The sport of kings to some, the sport of paupers for most.
From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2025
"The RFU keep trumpeting community rugby as the lifeblood of the game, while at the same time seemingly treating them like paupers."
From BBC ● Jan. 9, 2025
Monica, Danny and James are toiling in the shadow of the entertainment industry — relative paupers who can’t help wondering if they’ll ever be invited to the nearby banquet.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 14, 2022
In 1330, for instance, the official population of the northern Italian city of Florence was 100,000, but a full 20,000 were paupers, most of whom had come from the countryside seeking relief.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2020
Brooklyn became just a memory as I led them to distant lands where palaces shimmered against desert sand and paupers became princes with the whush of a magic wand.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
