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Showing results for pauperize. Search instead for pauperized.
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:

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

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

From Time Magazine Archive

Would it have corrupted him, since pauperize him further it could not?

From Seven English Cities by Howells, William Dean

"They're not well off, but we mustn't on any account pauperize them," was her verdict.

From The Princess of the School by Wiles, Frank

This same unsensitiveness to routine had enhanced his value with Slocum-Hines from delivery boy at fifteen to second-assistant buyer at twenty-five, an amenability, however, that threatened to pauperize him of any capacity for play.

From Star-Dust by Hurst, Fannie

"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

"I have given employment to many, and help to the pauperized."

From Greener Than You Think by Moore, Ward

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

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

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

The States could easily distribute the funds so as to encourage local taxation and enterprise and not result in pauperizing the communities.

From Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of Slavery to the Present Time by Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Moore

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