Meaning & use

impoverished

adjective·Academic

Made very poor, lacking money or resources, or seriously lacking in some important quality.

See it in a sentence

The impoverished village had no reliable access to clean drinking water.

Years of war left the once-prosperous nation impoverished and struggling to rebuild.

A note on using this word

Impoverished can describe financial poverty or, figuratively, a lack of something else valuable, as in an impoverished imagination.

Words with a similar meaning

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Words with an opposite meaning

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