noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The quality of being poor countable, uncountable
2. 2
   the quality of being poorly made or maintained wordnet
3. 3
   poverty countable, uncountable
4. 4
   the quality of being meager wordnet
5. 5
   less than adequate wordnet

Show 1 more definition

6. 6
   the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

basenesscoarsenesscommonnessdegradationdepravitydifficulties

Example

More examples

"When I mock poorness, then Heaven make me poor."

Etymology

From Middle English poornes, porenes, porenesse, pornes, pornesse, povernesse, powrenesse; equivalent to poor + -ness.

Related phrases

poorness is a state of mind

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.