poor – English adjective declension

English adjective forms of poor

Adjective: poor

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparativepoorer
Superlativepoorest

Perifrastic

Sample Sentences

  • We were so poor that we couldn't afford shoes.
  • England is growne to ſuch a paſſe of late,
  • That rich men triumph to ſee the poore beg at their gate. [1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act I:]
  • When Owenism and Chartism had burned themselves out, England had become poorer by that substance out of which the Anglo-Saxon ideal of a free society could have been built up for centuries to come. [1957 [1944], Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, Beacon Press: Boston, page 167:]
  • The poorest of the poor are truly destitute, with so few assets they are basically shackless. [2014, George W. Norton, Hunger and Hope: Escaping Poverty and Achieving Food Security in Developing ...:]
  • Durable goods can be cost-effective but make great disease vectors, and disposables like syringes and needles can be a problem in the poorest places, where there's desperate need of vaccines for diseases like polio. That's where the UCSD scientists come in. [2016 January 14, Jessica Hall, “Nanoengineers build 'microcannons' that fire light-up bullets filled with drugs”, in ExtremeTech, archived from the original on 24 Feb 2024:]
  • Because it’s considered relatively inexpensive, there’s an assumption that poor people eat more fast food than other socioeconomic groups – which has convinced some local governments to try to limit their access. […] The data showed becoming richer or poorer didn’t have much effect at all on how often people ate fast food. [2017 July 12, Jay L. Zagorsky, Patricia Smith, “No, poor people don’t eat the most fast food”, in CNN, archived from the original on 09 Mar 2024:]
  • That was a poor performance.
  • He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own. [1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:]
  • Meanwhile, due to a lack of wind, air quality in west Taiwan was poor yesterday, the Environmental Protection Administration said. Air quality could deteriorate early this morning, triggering a “red” alert — which signals unhealthy air quality — in some parts of Yunlin, Chiayi and Tainan counties, it said. [2021 March 28, “Taiwan News Quick Take”, in Taipei Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Mar 2021, Taiwan News, page 3:]
  • Oh, you poor thing, you're drenched!
  • This poor little puppy got a nasty snake bite.
  • Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen. [1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0056:]
  • Mr. Campion sighed. ‘Poor man,’ he said. ‘He sees his great sacrifices rejected by the gods, and so, no doubt, all the Misses Eumenides let loose again to plague him.’ [1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 15, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:]
  • Cow's milk is poor in iron.
  • I received a poor reward for all my hard work.
  • Business is poor right now.
  • That I have wronged no Man, will be a poor plea or apology at the last day. [a. 1686, Benjamin Calamy, Sermon 1:]
  • The temptation was more than mortal heart could resist. She gave him the promise he sought, stifling the voice of conscience; and as she clung to his neck it seemed to her that heaven was a poor thing compared with a man's love. [1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:]
  • Blessed are the poor in spirit. [1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 5:3:]

Adjectives inflected like poor

sallow, smooth, slight, sleigh, sordid, somber, shweet, shrill, shrewd, yellow, yaller, hard knock, DRY, Greek, cut short, unquiet, unclean, indiscreet, chipper, straicht, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w-
3. Proto-Indo-European *perh₃-?
4. Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w(o)p(o)rh₃o-
5. Proto-Italic *paw(o)paro-?
6. Latin dīvesinflu.
7. Latin pauper
8. Old French povrebor.
9. Middle English povre
10. English poor
11. Inherited from Middle English povre, povere, from Old French and Anglo-Norman povre, poure, from Latin pauper, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- (“few, small”). Doublet of pauper.
12. Displanced native wantsome, Middle English unlede (“poor”, from Old English unlǣde), Middle English unweli, unwely (“poor, unwealthy”, from Old English un- + weliġ (“well-to-do, prosperous, rich”))
13. and almost fully arm. See: Latin Adjectives 'pauper'.