poor
/pʊɚ/ adjective, noun, verb, proper noun
Forms poorer poorest poors pooring poored
- adjective 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.”
- adjective Of low quality. “That was a poor performance.”
- adjective (attributive only) Worthy of pity. “Oh, you poor thing, you're drenched!”
- adjective Deficient in a specified way. “Cow's milk is poor in iron.”
- adjective Inadequate, insufficient. “I received a poor reward for all my hard work.”
- adjective Free from self-assertion; not proud or arrogant; meek.
- noun (with the) The poor people of a society or the world collectively, the poor class of a society. “The sun shines on the rich and the poor alike but, come the rain, the rich have better umbrellas.”
- noun (card games) the second-to-last placer in Tycoon
- noun (countable, originally chiefly Scotland) A poor person. “The poors are at it again.”
- noun (obsolete) Synonym of poor cod.
- verb (transitive, rare) Synonym of impoverish, to make poor.
- verb (intransitive, obsolete) To become poor.
- verb (obsolete) To call someone poor.
- proper noun A surname
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 poor people hapless miserable misfortunate pathetic piteous pitiable pitiful wretched inadequate
Antonyms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English povre, povere, from Old French and Anglo-Norman povre, poure, from Latin pauper, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- (“few, small”). Doublet of pauper.
Displanced 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.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Destitute of property; wanting in material riches or goods; needy; indigent.
- adjective So completely destitute of property as to be entitled to maintenance from the public.
- noun A small European codfish (Gadus minutus); --called also power cod.
Etymology [OE. poure or povre, OF. povre, F. pauvre, L. pauper; the first syllable of which is probably akin to paucus few (see Paucity, Few), and the second to parare to prepare, procure. See Few, and cf. Parade, Pauper, Poverty.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “poor”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details