Roget's Thesaurus

#804. Poverty

Nouns

poverty, indigence, penury, pauperism, destitution, want; need, neediness; lack, necessity, privation, distress, difficulties, wolf at the door. bad circumstances, poor circumstances, need circumstances, embarrassed circumstances, reduced circumstances, straightened circumstances; slender means, narrow means; straits; hand to mouth existence, res angusta domi [Lat.], low water, impecuniosity. beggary; mendicancy, mendicity; broken fortune, loss of fortune; insolvency etc. (nonpayment) 808. empty pocket, empty purse; light purse; beggarly account of empty boxes. [poor people] poor man, pauper, mendicant, mumper, beggar, starveling; pauvre diable [Fr.]; fakir, schnorrer; homeless person.

Verbs

be poor etc. adj.; want, lack, starve, live from hand to mouth, have seen better days, go down in the world, come upon the parish; go to the dogs, go to wrack and ruin; not have a penny etc. (money) 800, not have a shot in one's locker; beg one's bread; tirer le diable par la queue [Fr.]; run into debt etc. (debt) 806. render poor etc. adj.; impoverish; reduce, reduce to poverty; pauperize, fleece, ruin, bring to the parish.

Adjectives

poor, indigent; poverty-stricken; badly off, poorly off, ill off; poor as a rat, poor as a church mouse, poor as a Job; fortuneless, dowerless, moneyless, penniless; unportioned, unmoneyed; impecunious; out of money, out of cash, short of money, short of cash; without a rap, not worth a rap etc. (money) 800; qui n'a pas le sou [Fr.], out of pocket, hard up; out at elbows, out at heels; seedy, bare-footed; beggarly, beggared; destitute; fleeced, stripped; bereft, bereaved; reduced; homeless. in want etc. n.; needy, necessitous, distressed, pinched, straitened; put to one's shifts, put to one's last shifts; unable to keep the wolf from the door, unable to make both ends meet; embarrassed, under hatches; involved etc. (in debt) 806; insolvent etc. (not paying) 808.

Adverbs

in forma pauperis [Lat.].

Phrases

zonam perdidit [Lat.]; a penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree [Lady Nairne]; a pobreza no hay verguenza [Sp.]; he that is down can fall no lower [Butler]; poca roba poco pensiero [It.]; steeped . . . in poverty to the very lips [Othello]; the short and simple annals of the poor [Gray].