Underprivileged

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1
A deprived person; deprived people (normally used as a plural).
"Since that time, both Catholicism and the Protestant denominations have seen an enormous outpouring of caritative agencies. Nuns and monks made teaching and care for the underprivileged a central part of their vocation; devout men and women have founded and devoted their lives to institutions as far removed as Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity and the Salvation Army."

Adjective

1
Deprived of the opportunities and advantages of others, usually through no fault of one's own.
"Underprivileged, grew up in a Stapleton house village / Where blood flood the water in streets like oil spillage"

Adjective

1
lacking the rights and advantages of other members of society wordnet

Synonyms

disadvantaged badly off beggared beggarly bereaved bereft

Antonyms

overprivileged privileged

Example

"A library run by a volunteer group in New Delhi’s largest slum resettlement colony is helping underprivileged teenagers become writers."

Etymology

From under- + privileged.

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