Poverty /(pŏv"ẽr*ty̆)/

Pov·er·ty

Poverty

n.
  1. The quality or state of being poor or indigent; want or scarcity of means of subsistence; indigence; need.
    The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty.
    — Prov. xxiii. 21.
  2. Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or desired, or that constitute richness; as, poverty of soil; poverty of the blood; poverty of ideas.

Phrases & Compounds

Poverty grass
a name given to several slender grasses (as Aristida dichotoma, and Danthonia spicata) which often spring up on old and worn-out fields.