poor
/poː/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.09 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
With no or few possessions or money, particularly in relation to contemporaries who do have them.
adj
Of low quality.
adj
adj
Free from self-assertion; not proud or arrogant; meek.
noun
The poor people of a society or the world collectively, the poor class of a society.
noun
the second-to-last placer in Tycoon
Example Sentences
- "We were so poor that we couldn't afford shoes."
- "England is growne to ſuch a paſſe of late, That rich men triumph to ſee the poore beg at their gate."
- "When Owenism and Chartism had burned themselves out, England had become poorer by that substance out of which the Anglo-Saxon ideal of a free society could have been built up for centuries to come."
- "The poorest of the poor are truly destitute, with so few assets they are basically shackless."
- "Durable goods can be cost-effective but make great disease vectors, and disposables like syringes and needles can be a problem in the poorest places, where there's desperate need of vaccines for diseases like polio. That's where the UCSD scientists come in."
- "Because it’s considered relatively inexpensive, there’s an assumption that poor people eat more fast food than other socioeconomic groups – which has convinced some local governments to try to limit their access. […] The data showed becoming richer or poorer didn’t have much effect at all on how often people ate fast food."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- Proto-Indo-European *perh₃-? Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w(o)p(o)rh₃o- Proto-Italic *paw(o)paro-? Latin dīvesinflu. Latin pauper Old French povrebor. Middle English povre English poor Inherited from Middle English povre, povere, from Old French and Anglo-Norman povre, poure, from Latin pauper, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- (“few, small”). Doublet of pauper. Displanced native wantsome, Middle English unlede (“poor”, from Old English unlǣde), Middle English unweli, unwely (“poor, unwealthy”, from Old English un- + weliġ (“well-to-do, prosperous, rich”)) and almost fully arm.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /poː/