POORNESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does poorness mean? 

• POORNESS (noun)
  The noun POORNESS has 4 senses:

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

2. less than adequate

3. the quality of being meager

4. the quality of being poorly made or maintained

  Familiarity information: POORNESS used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POORNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

impoverishment; poorness; poverty

Hypernyms ("poorness" is a kind of...):

financial condition (the condition of (corporate or personal) finances)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "poorness"):

deprivation; neediness; privation; want (a state of extreme poverty)

destitution (a state without friends or money or prospects)

indigence; need; pauperism; pauperization; penury (a state of extreme poverty or destitution)

impecuniousness; pennilessness; penuriousness (a state of lacking money)

Derivation:

poor (having little money or few possessions)

poor (characterized by or indicating poverty)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Less than adequate

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

the relative poorness of New England farmland

Hypernyms ("poorness" is a kind of...):

aridity; barrenness; fruitlessness (the quality of yielding nothing of value)

Derivation:

poor (lacking in quality or substances)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The quality of being meager

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

exiguity; leanness; meagerness; meagreness; poorness; scantiness; scantness

Context example:

an exiguity of cloth that would only allow of miniature capes

Hypernyms ("poorness" is a kind of...):

deficiency; inadequacy; insufficiency (lack of an adequate quantity or number)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "poorness"):

wateriness (meagerness or poorness connoted by a superfluity of water (in a literary style as well as in a food))

abstemiousness (restricted to bare necessities)

spareness; sparseness; sparsity; thinness (the property of being scanty or scattered; lacking denseness)

Derivation:

poor (lacking in quality or substances)

poor (of insufficient quantity to meet a need)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The quality of being poorly made or maintained

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

she was unrecognizable because of the poorness of the photography

Hypernyms ("poorness" is a kind of...):

inferiority; low quality (an inferior quality)