#804. Poverty.-- N. 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[obs][Lat], low water, impecuniosity.
beggary; mendicancy, mendicity[obs]; broken fortune, loss of fortune; insolvency &c. (nonpayment) 808.
empty pocket, empty purse; light purse; beggarly account of empty boxes.
[poor people] poor man, pauper, mendicant, mumper[obs], beggar, starveling; pauvre diable[Fr]; fakir|!, schnorrer|!; homeless person.
V. be poor &c. 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 &c. (money) 800, not have a shot in one's locker; beg one's bread; tirer le diable par la queue[Fr]; run into debt &c. (debt) 806.
render poor &c. adj.; impoverish; reduce, reduce to poverty; pauperize, fleece, ruin, bring to the parish.
Adj. poor, indigent; poverty-stricken; badly off, poorly off, ill off; poor as a rat, poor as a church mouse, poor as a Job; fortuneless[obs], dowerless[obs], moneyless[obs], penniless; unportioned[obs], unmoneyed[obs]; impecunious; out of money, out of cash, short of money, short of cash; without a rap, not worth a rap &c.(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 &c. 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 &c. (in debt) 806; insolvent &c. (not paying) 808.
Adv. in forma pauperis[Lat].
Phr. 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].