poverty
the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor.
deficiency of necessary or desirable ingredients, qualities, etc.: poverty of the soil.
scantiness; insufficiency: Their efforts to stamp out disease were hampered by a poverty of medical supplies.
Origin of poverty
1Other words for poverty
1 | privation, neediness, destitution, indigence, pauperism, penury |
2 | thinness, poorness, insufficiency |
3 | meagerness, sparseness, inadequacy, shortage, paucity, dearth |
Opposites for poverty
Words Nearby poverty
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use poverty in a sentence
China has made remarkable, remarkable strides in the past 20 years, lifting a half a billion people out of poverty.
Trump’s most popular YouTube ad is a stew of manipulated video | Glenn Kessler, Meg Kelly | September 17, 2020 | Washington PostThe crop is so important that government insiders consider its development synonymous with the eradication of poverty in Malaysia.
The Environmental Headache in Your Shampoo - Issue 90: Something Green | Anastasia Bendebury & Michael Shilo DeLay | September 16, 2020 | NautilusSuch a shift in population is likely to increase poverty and widen the gulf between the rich and the poor.
Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration | by Abrahm Lustgarten, photography by Meridith Kohut | September 15, 2020 | ProPublicaIts 2008 adoption of GM cotton for smallholder farmers was hailed as an example of how these technologies could alleviate poverty and food insecurity by protecting crops from pests and increasing yields.
How the “success story” of genetically modified cotton in Burkina Faso fell apart | Brian Dowd-Uribe | September 4, 2020 | QuartzWhether a kid faces poverty or neglect, “the way you start out in life tends to continue,” Gunnar says.
Puberty may reboot the brain and behaviors | Esther Landhuis | August 27, 2020 | Science News For Students
Getting men to do their share of care and domestic work is a key overlooked strategy in reducing poverty.
How Good Dads Can Change the World | Gary Barker, PhD, Michael Kaufman | January 6, 2015 | THE DAILY BEASTIt demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time.
Thank Congress, Not LBJ for Great Society | Julian Zelizer, Scott Porch | January 4, 2015 | THE DAILY BEASTThe losers have always been children in poverty, children of color, and children with disabilities.
The ‘No Child’ Rewrite Threatens Your Kids’ Future | Jonah Edelman | January 3, 2015 | THE DAILY BEASTNor do these studies address the structural and systematic issues that contribute to obesity, such as poverty and stress.
World peace, religious tolerance, and an end to global poverty, hunger, and disease.
And our views of poverty and social betterment, or what is possible and what is not, are still largely conditioned by it.
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice | Stephen LeacockIn the old world, poverty seemed, and poverty was, the natural and inevitable lot of the greater portion of mankind.
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice | Stephen LeacockHe passed the latter part of his life in poverty, and towards the close of it, was confined in a madhouse.
The Every Day Book of History and Chronology | Joel MunsellSeen thus poverty became rather a blessing than a curse, or at least a dispensation prescribing the proper lot of man.
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice | Stephen LeacockEven if poverty were gone, the flail could still beat hard enough upon the grain and chaff of humanity.
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice | Stephen Leacock
British Dictionary definitions for poverty
/ (ˈpɒvətɪ) /
the condition of being without adequate food, money, etc
scarcity or dearth: a poverty of wit
a lack of elements conducive to fertility in land or soil
Origin of poverty
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Browse