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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

I asked whether this provision of gratis food did in fact pauperize the population, as has been alleged.

From Regeneration by Henry Rider Haggard

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 Olive Higgins Prouty

How they pauperize and debauch those they try to raise!

From A Pessimist In Theory and Practice by Frederic Mayer Bird

"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

Hungary, a land in point of the fertility of her soil, as rich as few in Europe, is overloaded with debt, and her population, pauperized and in the hands of usurers, emigrates in large numbers.

From Woman under socialism by Daniel De Leon

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

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

Coal operators were flayed for "pauperizing" the industry, the U. S. Government was asked to lend a helping hand.

From Time Magazine Archive

It is desirable to get the children into the schools, but it is highly undesirable to do this by practically pauperizing the parents.

From Practical Politics; or, the Liberalism of To-day by Alfred Farthing Robbins

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