poor

With no or few possessions or money, particularly in relation to contemporaries who do have them.

Adjective

  1. With no or few possessions or money, particularly in relation to contemporaries who do have them.
    • We were so poor that we couldn't afford shoes.
    • England is growne to ſuch a paſſe of late, That rich men triumph to ſee the poore beg at their gate. - 1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act I:
    • When Owenism and Chartism had burned themselves out, England had become poorer by that substance out of which the Anglo-Saxon ideal of a free society could have been built up for centuries to come. - 1957 [1944], Karl...

    Synonyms: broke impecunious needy almsless arm badly off bankrupt beggared beggarly boracic broken broker than the Ten Commandments depauperate destitute dirt poor disadvantaged down and out down at heel down on one's luck down on one's uppers empty-handed farthingless feeling the pinch flat

    Antonyms: rich wealthy

  2. Of low quality.
    • That was a poor performance.
    • He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling,...
    • Meanwhile, due to a lack of wind, air quality in west Taiwan was poor yesterday, the Environmental Protection Administration said. Air quality could deteriorate early this morning, triggering a “red” alert — which...

    Synonyms: cheap inferior low sorry ass bad base below par bottom-shelf BTEC bum cheap and nasty cheapshit cheesy chintzy coffee-and crap crappo crappy craptastic crapperific craptabulous craptacular cruddy

    Antonyms: good

  3. Worthy of pity.
    • Oh, you poor thing, you're drenched!
    • This poor little puppy got a nasty snake bite.
    • Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of...

    Synonyms: pitiable pitisome rueful compassionate pathetic pathetisad piteous pitiful poor ruthful snivelly sorry-ass

  4. Deficient in a specified way.
    • Cow's milk is poor in iron.

    Synonyms: absent devoid of void of awanting bereft of deficient of deprived of destitute of lacking leer poor in robbed of shorn of stripped of wanting

    Antonyms: rich

  5. Inadequate, insufficient.
    • I received a poor reward for all my hard work.
    • That I have wronged no Man, will be a poor plea or apology at the last day. - a. 1686, Benjamin Calamy, Sermon 1:
    • The temptation was more than mortal heart could resist. She gave him the promise he sought, stifling the voice of conscience; and as she clung to his neck it seemed to her that heaven was a poor thing compared with a...

    Synonyms: dismal meager slender awanting deficient exiguous geason inadequate insufficient lank lean lousy measly paltry poor raunchy scant scantling scanty scarce skimpy sleazy spare sparse

    Antonyms: adequate decent

  6. Free from self-assertion; not proud or arrogant; meek.
    • Blessed are the poor in spirit. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 5:3:

    Synonyms: demure modest self-effacing abased diffident humble humble-hearted low lowly meek mild poor resigned unpretentious verecund

Origin

Inherited from Middle English povre, povere, from Old French (and Anglo-Norman) povre, poure, from Latin pauper, from Old Latin *pavo-pars (literally “getting little”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- (“few, small”). Doublet of pauper. displaced native wantsome, Middle English unlede (“poor”) (from Old English unlǣde), Middle English unweli, unwely (“poor, unwealthy”) (from Old English un- + weliġ (“well-to-do, prosperous, rich”)). and almost fully arm

Forms

poorer poorest

Related

few paucal pauci- paucity pauper

Derived

antipoor being poor is a mindset being poor is a state of mind cash poor cash-poor court poor box dirt poor dirt-poor fuel-poor have a poor time of it house poor impoor income-poor in poor taste insurance poor iron-poor land-poor land poor Little Sister of the Poor metal-poor nonpoor oxygen-poor piss on the poor piss-poor

Noun plural, plural only

  1. The poor people of a society or the world collectively, the poor class of a society.
    • ...when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might haue bin sold for much, and giuen to the poore. When Iesus vnderstood it, he said vnto them, Why trouble...
    • Harry Truman used to say that 13 or 14 million Americans had their interests represented in Washington, but that the rest of the people had to depend on the President of the United States. That is how I felt about the...
    • Then there have not always been proletarians? No. There have always been poor and working classes; and those who worked were almost always the poor. But there have not always been proletarians, just as competition has...
  2. the second-to-last placer in Tycoon

    Antonyms: rich

Noun Entry 3

  1. A poor person.
    • The poors are at it again.
    • ...me vint of ane king to huam a poure acsede ane peny... - 1340, Laurent du Bois, translated by Dan Michel, Ayenbite of Inwyt, page 195:
    • He had given somewhat to every poore in the Parish. - 1625, Thomas Jackson, A Treatise Containing the Originall of Vnbeliefe, Pt. v, Ch. xvi, §6:

    Synonyms: beggar have not penny-father bankrupt indigent insolvent lack-all Lazarus pauper poor

  2. Synonym of poor cod.

    Synonyms: poor cod

Forms

poors

Derived

deserving poor undeserving poor Europoor

Verb

  1. Synonym of impoverish, to make poor.
    • It is very evident that Americans are being ‘poored down’ to suit the world socialist agenda, and to maximize profits for the international corporations. - 2003 August 10, Dallas News, p. 3

    Synonyms: beggar pauperize ruin depauperate depauperize destitute embeggar empoverish immiserate impoor impoverish poor poverish to make poor

  2. To become poor.
    • The mone of this realme is born out in gret quantite and the realme puryt of the sammyn. - 1467, Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, Vol. II, p. 88
  3. To call someone poor.
    • Miss Lavinia... put in that she didn't want to be ‘poored by pa,’ or anybody else. - 1864 May – 1865 November, Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Chapman and Hall,...

Forms

poors pooring poored