impoverish
/ɪmˈpɒv(ə)ɹɪʃ/ verb
Forms impoverishes impoverishing impoverished
- verb (transitive) To make poor.
- verb (transitive) To weaken in quality; to deprive of some strength or richness. “That exuberant crop quickly impoverishes any fertile soil.”
- verb (intransitive) To become poor.
Synonyms
empoverish immiserate poor ruin deplete beggar depauperate depauperize destitute embeggar impoor pauperize poverish deprive
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English empoverishen, impoverishen, empoverischen, enpoverisshen, Anglo-Norman empoveriss-, from Old French empoverir, from em- + povre, from Latin pauper (“poor”) (English poor).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To make poor; to reduce to poverty or indigence; as, misfortune and disease impoverish families.
- verb To exhaust the strength, richness, or fertility of; to make sterile; as, to impoverish land.
Etymology [OF. empovrir; pref. em- (L. in) + povre poor, F. pauvre; cf. OF. apovrir, F. appauvrir, where the prefix is a-, L. ad. Cf. Empoverish, and see Poor, and -ish.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “impoverish”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details