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.
{Poverty grass} (Bot.), a name given to several slender
grasses (as {Aristida dichotoma}, and {Danthonia spicata})
which often spring up on old and worn-out fields.
Syn: Indigence; penury; beggary; need; lack; want;
scantiness; sparingness; meagerness; jejuneness.
Usage: {Poverty}, {Indigence}, {Pauperism}. Poverty is a
relative term; what is poverty to a monarch, would be
competence for a day laborer. Indigence implies
extreme distress, and almost absolute destitution.
Pauperism denotes entire dependence upon public
charity, and, therefore, often a hopeless and degraded
state.