poor

poor: —poorness, n.

/poor/, adj., poorer, poorest, n.

adj.

1. having little or no money, goods, or other means of support: a poor family living on welfare.

2. Law. dependent upon charity or public support.

3. (of a country, institution, etc.) meagerly supplied or endowed with resources or funds.

4. characterized by or showing poverty.

5. deficient or lacking in something specified: a region poor in mineral deposits.

6. faulty or inferior, as in construction: poor workmanship.

7. deficient in desirable ingredients, qualities, or the like: poor soil.

8. excessively lean or emaciated, as cattle.

9. of an inferior, inadequate, or unsatisfactory kind: poor health.

10. lacking in skill, ability, or training: a poor cook.

11. deficient in moral excellence; cowardly, abject, or mean.

12. scanty, meager, or paltry in amount or number: a poor audience.

13. humble; modest: They shared their poor meal with a stranger.

14. unfortunate; hapless: The poor dog was limping.

15. poor as a church mouse, extremely poor.

16. poor as Job's turkey, extremely poor; impoverished.

n.

17. (used with a pl. v.) poor persons collectively (usually prec. by the): sympathy for the poor.

[1150-1200; ME pov(e)re < OF povre < L pauper. See PAUPER]

Syn. 1. needy, indigent, necessitous, straitened, destitute, penniless, poverty-stricken. POOR, IMPECUNIOUS, IMPOVERISHED, PENNILESS refer to those lacking money. POOR is the simple term for the condition of lacking means to obtain the comforts of life: a very poor family. IMPECUNIOUS often suggests that the poverty is a consequence of unwise habits: an impecunious actor. IMPOVERISHED often implies a former state of greater plenty, from which one has been reduced: the impoverished aristocracy.

PENNILESS may mean destitute, or it may apply simply to a temporary condition of being without funds: The widow was left penniless with three small children. 5. meager. 6. unsatisfactory, shabby. 7. sterile, barren, unfruitful, unproductive. 8. thin, skinny, meager, gaunt. 14. miserable, unhappy, pitiable.

Ant. 1, 5, 7. rich. 1, 3, 4. wealthy.

Pronunciation. In the North and North Midland U.S., the vowel of POOR is most often /oo/. POOR and sure thus contrast with pour and shore: /poor/, /shoor/ versus /pawr/, /shawr/ or /pohr/, /shohr/. In the South Midland and South, the vowel of POOR is generally /aw/ or /oh/ (often with the final /r/ dropped), which means that in these areas, POOR and pour are homophones, as are sure and shore. Both types of pronunciation exist in the British Isles.

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Synonyms:

Indigent, needy, necessitous, pinched, straitened, The indigent, the needy / Miserable, wretched, unfortunate, luckless, ill-fated, ill-starred, unlucky, unhappy, pitiable / Meagre, insufficient, inadequate, scant, small / Faulty, unsatisfactory / Thin, scanty / Weak, feeble, flimsy / Penniless, moneyless, impecunious, destitute, distressed, poverty-stricken, seedy, reduced, short of money, out of money, without a penny, out of pocket, out of cash, out at the elbows, out at the heels, in need, in want, hard up, in distress, living from hand to mouth, not worth a farthing, not worth a sou, not rich, badly off, poorly off, Paupers / Emaciated, lean, thin, meagre, lank, gaunt, skinny, shrunk, fallen away / Barren, sterile, unfruitful, unfertile, unproductive, fruitless, unprolific / Trifling, trivial, slight, small, slender, flimsy, insufficient, inadequate, worthless, unimportant, of little use or worth, valueless, paltry / Unsound, infirm, feeble, delicate, weak, frail / Shabby, seedy, worthless, valueless, inferior, not good / Contemptible, despicable, paltry, mean, sorry, beggarly, pitiful, shabby, bad, low, inferior / Feeble, languid, weak, bald, tame, jejune, vapid, cold, frigid, dull, prosing, prosy, prosaic, spiritless, barren, mean, meagre, dry

Look at other dictionaries:

Poor — Poor, a. [Compar. {Poorer} (?; 254); superl. {Poorest}.] [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… … The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
Poor — is an adjective related to a state of poverty, low quality or pity.People with the surname Poor: * Charles Henry Poor, a US Navy officer * Charles Lane Poor, an astronomer * Edward Erie Poor, a vice president of the National Park Bank * Enoch… … Wikipedia
poor — UK US /pɔːr/ US /pʊr/ adjective ► having little money and/or few possessions: »It s offering to pay off 10 percent of the poor countries debt. »He came from a poor immigrant family. ► not good or operating well, or of a low quality or standard:… … Financial and business terms
Poor — ist der Familienname folgender Personen: Enoch Poor (1736–1780), Schiffbauer und Händler aus Exeter, Brigadegeneral der Kontinentalarmee im Amerikanischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg. Salem Poor (* 1758), afroamerikanischer Soldat, der für seine… … Deutsch Wikipedia
poor — I (inferior in quality) adjective bad, badly made, barely passable, base, beggarly, below par, below standard, cheap, coarse, common, contemptible, crude, defective, deficient, dubious, faulty, flimsy, gimcrack, imperfect, inadequate, inartistic … Law dictionary
Poor — Poor, n. (Zo[ o]l.) A small European codfish ({Gadus minutus}); called also {power cod}. [1913 Webster] … The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
poor — (ind., spr. puhr), so v.w. Stadt … Pierer's Universal-Lexikon
Poor — Henry, Verfasser des nach ihm benannten alljährlich in New York erscheinenden Jahrbuchs, Manual of the Railroads of the United States. Dieses Jahrbuch bringt nach den Mitteilungen der großen Mehrzahl der Eisenbahnverwaltungen der Vereinigten… … Enzyklopädie des Eisenbahnwesens
poor-do — /poor dooh /, n. Chiefly Midland and Central Atlantic States. scrapple. [1905 10, Amer.; of unclear derivation] * * * … Universalium
poor — 1. adjective /pɔə,pʊə,pɔː(ɹ),pɔr,pʊr/ a) With little or no possessions or money. We were so poor that we couldnt afford shoes. b) Of low quality. That was a poor performance. Syn: impoverished, wealthless … Wiktionary

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