poverty

plural poverties

1. uncountableusuallyThe quality or state of being poor; lack of money

   get into poverty

   4 more examples

   get out of poverty

   escape from poverty

   From there Prince Rupert, the Royalist general and nephew of Charles I, demanded over £2,000 from the mayor of Leicester to pay the king's forces who were camped around Queniborough. The mayor, however, pleaded poverty and sent only £500.

   1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 329, about Queniborough

   America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.

   2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 11

2. uncountableusuallyA deficiency of something needed or desired

   poverty of soil

   2 more examples

   poverty of the blood

   poverty of spirit