poverty-stricken
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of poverty-stricken
First recorded in 1795–1805
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.
They live in a 289,000-acre forest reserve in the poverty stricken eastern Amazonian state of Maranhão.
From BBC • Apr. 28, 2021
And you expect that country to somehow all of a sudden go from a trampled and poverty stricken people to a prosperous one in a few years?
From New York Times • Jun. 24, 2015
The girl is one of 11 children living in the poverty stricken municipality of Ixtlahuacan de los Membrillos, 25 miles south of Guadalajara, the AP said.
From Salon • Feb. 8, 2013
Landlocked, isolated and poverty stricken despite reserves of gold, timber, uranium and gemstone quality diamonds, Central African Republic has been racked by rural rebellions for more than a decade.
From Reuters • Jan. 7, 2013
What had once been home was now a place of peril and the family was poverty stricken.
From "When the Sea Turned to Silver" by Grace Lin
![]()
Definitions 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.