poor

adjective

ˈpu̇r How to pronounce poor (audio)
Definition of poornext
1
as in impoverished
lacking money or material possessions every year, we make up a basket of food at Thanksgiving for a poor family in the neighborhood

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in desolate
producing inferior or only a small amount of vegetation land that is too poor for farming

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in scarce
less plentiful than what is normal, necessary, or desirable a poor crop because of the drought this year

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4
as in unacceptable
falling short of a standard a pretty poor musician, even for a garage band

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5
as in terrible
of low quality the poor workmanship of the goods from that store

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6
as in pitiful
deserving of one's pity aw, the poor kitten hurt its paw

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of poor The show focuses on the Evans family, a poor Black family living in a high-rise building in Chicago, and the episodes showcase their efforts to get by and improve their lives. — Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Aug. 2026 Incidents often went undetected for months, highlighting poor monitoring. — Sandy Carter, Forbes.com, 2 Aug. 2026 Those poor defensive numbers might be due in part to a back ailment that Adames has battled at times this year, which has impacted his ability to work with Washington. — Justice Delos Santos, Mercury News, 2 Aug. 2026 That report, released by the county last month, details a department doing many things right but also plagued by a poor facility in Bonita and other practices that don’t align with industry standards. — Lucas Robinson, San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 Aug. 2026 See All Example Sentences for poor
Recent Examples of Synonyms for poor
  1. impoverished
  2. desolate
  3. scarce
  4. unacceptable
  5. terrible
  6. pitiful
  7. broke
  8. barren
Adjective
  • But for those who don’t see the unhoused, impoverished or vulnerable as human, deserving of rights or even life, Heimbach has some advice.
    — Trevor Morgan, Sacbee.com, 24 July 2026
  • Lama finished high school thanks to a government scholarship for impoverished students.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 23 July 2026
Definition of impoverished
Adjective
  • In July 1991, Gerard Dorsey was gunned down in an alley off North Brice Street in a desolate West Baltimore alley.
    — Mike Hellgren, CBS News, 5 Aug. 2026
  • The Gwi Realm is a desolate, crimson wasteland littered with malevolent presence, so naturally there have been comparisons to that other little Netflix show called Stranger Things.
    — Hannah Abraham, Forbes.com, 29 July 2026
Definition of desolate
Adjective
  • Since big grocers in those areas are already scarce, the food deserts would expand, not shrink.
    — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 2 Aug. 2026
  • The companies positioned by this are the ones supplying the scarce inputs, the compute and the power sitting underneath every frontier model, American or Chinese alike.
    — Jon Markman, Forbes.com, 31 July 2026
Definition of scarce
Adjective
  • The plan is to then gradually introduce louder sounds, Coen added, to discover the level at which a sonic boom noise goes from being acceptable to unacceptable.
    — Jacopo Prisco, CNN Money, 6 Aug. 2026
  • Given the national security stakes, the prospect of foreign governments being able to suspend access to critical models at a whim started to feel like an unacceptable risk.
    — Beatrice Nolan, Fortune, 5 Aug. 2026
Definition of unacceptable
Adjective
  • The delta between the disability from these diseases and the amount of funding and research being done on them is terrible.
    — Emily Forlini, Fortune, 3 Aug. 2026
  • And forty per cent was about how great Modi is and how terrible the opposition is.
    — Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker, 3 Aug. 2026
Definition of terrible
Adjective
  • Completing the hat trick in pitiful style, Taking on the World was shot on a shoestring budget, helmed by the man behind Highlander III, and forced to rely on stock footage of real-life footballers.
    — Jon O'Brien, Vulture, 26 June 2026
  • Given the national team’s pitiful demise at the Oval, with New Zealand completing victory on the fifth morning, Ben Stokes’ revival in absentia feels like the only consolation from a miserable week.
    — Hector Vickers, New York Times, 21 June 2026
Definition of pitiful
Adjective
  • News reports warn that Social Security is running out of money, going broke.
    — Daniel de Visé, USA Today, 22 July 2026
  • The pat explanation for this shift is that people are just too busy, too broke, and too brain-melted to read serious books any more.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 15 July 2026
Definition of broke
Adjective
  • John Mozeliak just had the best day by an Angels front-office member in about a decade, replenishing a barren farm system with nine prospects after a handful of trades.
    — Levi Weaver, New York Times, 4 Aug. 2026
  • Sprawling acres of largely barren farmland, still owned by the sugarcane plantations that dominated the islands’ economy for a century, line the side of the highway here, gently sloping toward the craggy green cliffs of the Waimea Canyon.
    — Guthrie Scrimgeour, Rolling Stone, 2 Aug. 2026
Definition of barren

Browse Nearby Words

pooped
poor
poorish
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Cite this Entry

“Poor.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/poor. Accessed 8 Aug. 2026.

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More from Merriam-Webster on poor

Nglish: Translation of poor for Spanish Speakers

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