poorness

poor  (pr)

adj. poor·er, poor·est

1. Having little or no wealth and few or no possessions.

2. Lacking in a specified resource or quality: an area poor in timber and coal; a diet poor in calcium.

3. Not adequate in quality; inferior: a poor performance.

4.

a. Lacking in value; insufficient: poor wages.

b. Lacking in quantity: poor attendance.

5. Lacking fertility: poor soil.

6. Undernourished; lean.

7. Humble: a poor spirit.

8. Eliciting or deserving pity; pitiable: couldn't rescue the poor fellow.

n. (used with a pl. verb)

People with little or no wealth and possessions considered as a group: The urban poor are in need of homes.

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[Middle English poure, from Old French povre, from Latin pauper; see pau-¹ in Indo-European roots.]

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poorness n.

Synonyms: poor, indigent, needy, impecunious, penniless, impoverished, poverty-stricken, destitute
These adjectives mean lacking the money or the means for an adequate or comfortable life. Poor is the most general: "Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness" (Samuel Johnson).
Indigent and needy refer to one in need or want: indigent people living on the street; distributed food to needy families.
Impecunious and penniless mean having little or no money: "Certainly an impecunious Subaltern was not a catch" (Rudyard Kipling). He made poor investments which left him penniless.
One who is impoverished has been reduced to poverty: an impoverished, third-world country.
Poverty-stricken means suffering from poverty and miserably poor: refugees living in poverty-stricken camps.
Destitute means lacking any means of subsistence: tenants left destitute by the fire.

Usage Note: In informal speech poor is sometimes used as an adverb, as in They never played poorer. In formal usage more poorly would be required in this example.

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	poorness - the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions impoverishment, poverty financial condition - the condition of (corporate or personal) finances deprivation, neediness, privation, want - a state of extreme poverty destitution - a state without friends or money or prospects indigence, pauperism, pauperization, penury, need - a state of extreme poverty or destitution; "their indigence appalled him"; "a general state of need exists among the homeless" impecuniousness, pennilessness, penuriousness - a state of lacking money
	2.	poorness - less than adequate; "the relative poorness of New England farmland" aridity, barrenness, fruitlessness - the quality of yielding nothing of value
	3.	poorness - the quality of being meager; "an exiguity of cloth that would only allow of miniature capes"-George Eliot exiguity, leanness, meagerness, meagreness, scantiness, scantness inadequacy, deficiency, insufficiency - lack of an adequate quantity or number; "the inadequacy of unemployment benefits" wateriness - meagerness or poorness connoted by a superfluity of water (in a literary style as well as in a food); "the haziness and wateriness of his disquisitions"; "the wateriness of his blood"; "no one enjoys the burning of his soup or the wateriness of his potatoes" abstemiousness - restricted to bare necessities spareness, sparseness, sparsity, thinness - the property of being scanty or scattered; lacking denseness
	4.	poorness - the quality of being poorly made or maintained; "she was unrecognizable because of the poorness of the photography" low quality, inferiority - an inferior quality

Translations

poorness [ˈpʊənɪs] N

1. (= poverty) → pobreza f

2. (= poor quality) → mala calidad f
poorness of spirit → apocamiento m, mezquindad f

poorness

n

(= lack of money) → Armut f

(= lack of quality) → Dürftigkeit f, → Mangelhaftigkeit f; (of soil) → Magerkeit f, → Unergiebigkeit f; (of effort, excuse, harvest, performance) → Dürftigkeit f; (of quality) → Minderwertigkeit f; (of weather, memory, health, eyesight) → Unzulänglichkeit f; (of leadership) → Schwäche f

poorness [ˈpʊənɪs] n (lack of wealth) → povertà; (of crop, light) → scarsità; (of effort, excuse, accommodation) → insufficienza, inadeguatezza; (of health) → debolezza