noun
1.
the state of one with insufficient resources
repeated crop failures had reduced the farmers to poverty
Synonyms: beggary, borasca, destituteness, destitution, impecuniousness, impoverishment, indigence, indigency, need, neediness, pauperism, pennilessness, penury, poorness, privation, unprosperousness, want
Related Word: exigency, necessity; juncture, pass, pinch, strait; difficulty, distress, embarrassment; hardship, suffering; mendicancy
Idioms: hand-to-mouth existence, straitened circumstances
Contrasted words: affluence, comfort, luxury, opulence, prosperity, richness, wealth
Antonyms: riches
2.
Synonyms: scarcity , insufficience, insufficiency, paucity, ||scant, scarceness