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Poverty - Dictionary Definition and Overview |
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Poverty : (noun)
1: the state of having little or no money and few or no
material possessions [syn: poorness, impoverishment]
[ant: wealth]
Based on WordNet 2.0
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Poverty : \Pov"er*ty\ (p[o^]v"[~e]r*t[y^]), n. [OE. poverte, OF.
povert['e], F. pauvret['e], fr. L. paupertas, fr. pauper
poor. See Poor.]
1. The quality or state of being poor or indigent; want or
scarcity of means of subsistence; indigence; need.
``Swathed in numblest poverty.'' --Keble.
The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty.
--Prov. xxiii.
21.
2. Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or
desired, or that constitute richness; as, poverty of soil;
poverty of the blood; poverty of ideas.
Poverty grass (Bot.), a name given to several slender
grasses (as Aristida dichotoma, and Danthonia spicata)
which often spring up on old and worn-out fields.
Syn: Indigence; penury; beggary; need; lack; want;
scantiness; sparingness; meagerness; jejuneness.
Usage: Poverty, Indigence, Pauperism. Poverty is a
relative term; what is poverty to a monarch, would be
competence for a day laborer. Indigence implies
extreme distress, and almost absolute destitution.
Pauperism denotes entire dependence upon public
charity, and, therefore, often a hopeless and degraded
state.
Based on WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003)
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