impoverished
impoverished Lexical Profile
impoverished Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Reduced to poverty; lacking the financial resources to meet basic living needs.
"The charity provides scholarships and educational supplies to students from impoverished communities."
Depleted of natural fertility, vitality, creative richness, or essential qualities.
"Decades of intensive monoculture farming had left the once-fertile valley with severely impoverished soil."
• verb
To make a person, group, or region poor; to reduce to poverty (past tense and past participle of impoverish).
"Prolonged economic sanctions and hyperinflation impoverished millions of working-class families."
To exhaust the natural strength, richness, or quality of something (past tense and past participle of impoverish).
"Overgrazing by livestock gradually impoverished the grassland ecosystem."
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Formed from the verb impoverish, which entered Middle English from Old French empovrir ('to make poor'), ultimately derived from Latin pauper ('poor').