poverty

n. [ OE. poverte, OF. poverté, F. pauvreté, 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty. Prov. xxiii. 21. [ 1913 Webster ]

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. [ 1913 Webster ]

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. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- Indigence; penury; beggary; need; lack; want; scantiness; sparingness; meagerness; jejuneness. 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. [ 1913 Webster ]