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Showing results for pauperize. Search instead for pauperizing.
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

They flocked to her, though she did not pauperize them by giving her services free.

From The Second Generation by Phillips, David Graham

And so we sympathize with Andrew Carnegie in his endeavor to live up to his dictum to die poor, and yet not pauperize the world by his wealth.

From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 11 Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen by Hubbard, Elbert

Shall he pauperize himself just for a cousin?

From The "Goldfish" by Train, Arthur Cheney

"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

Whole communities are pauperized, the turning of their cattle upon the Alpine pastures being made impossible to them, or their right to do so being even disputed.

From Woman under socialism by De Leon, Daniel

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

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

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

Thus they will escape from the pauperizing tendencies of the free school system.

From Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada by Putnam, J. Harold

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