poor
[ poor ]
/ pʊər /
adjective, poor·er, poor·est.
noun
(used with a plural verb)
poor persons collectively (usually preceded by the): sympathy for the poor.
Idioms for poor
poor as a church mouse,
extremely poor.
poor as Job's turkey,
extremely poor; impoverished.
Origin of poor
SYNONYMS FOR poor
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.
pronunciation note for poor
In the North and North Midland U.S., the vowel of
poor is most often
[oo] /ʊ/.
Poor and
sure thus contrast with
pour and
shore:
[poor] /pʊər/,
[shoor] /ʃʊər/ versus
[pawr] /pɔr/,
[shawr] /ʃɔr/ or
[pohr] /poʊr/,
[shohr] /ʃoʊr/. In the South Midland and South, the vowel of
poor is generally
[aw] /ɔ/ or
[oh] /oʊ/ (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.
OTHER WORDS FROM poor
poor·ness, noun non·poor, noun qua·si-poor, adjective qua·si-poor·ly, adverbWords nearby poor
Example sentences from the Web for poor
British Dictionary definitions for poor
poor
/ (pʊə, pɔː) /
adjective
Derived forms of poor
poorness, nounWord Origin for poor
C13: from Old French
povre, from Latin
pauper; see
pauper,
poverty