Poverty : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: Poverty	by the DICT Development Group
2 results for Poverty
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
poverty n the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions Synonym(s): poverty, poorness, impoverishment Antonym(s): wealth, wealthiness
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Poverty \Pov"erty\ (p[ocr]v"[etil]rt[ycr]), n. [OE. poverte, OF. povert[82], F. pauvret[82], 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. [bd]Swathed in numblest poverty.[b8] --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.