having little or no money, goods, or other means of support: a poor family living on welfare.
2.
Law. dependent upon charity or public support.
3.
(of a country, institution, etc.) meagerly supplied or endowed with resources or funds.
4.
characterized by or showing poverty.
5.
deficient or lacking in something specified: a region poor in mineral deposits.
6.
faulty or inferior, as in construction: poor workmanship.
7.
deficient in desirable ingredients, qualities, or the like: poor soil.
8.
excessively lean or emaciated, as cattle.
9.
of an inferior, inadequate, or unsatisfactory kind: poor health.
10.
lacking in skill, ability, or training: a poor cook.
11.
deficient in moral excellence; cowardly, abject, or mean.
12.
scanty, meager, or paltry in amount or number: a poor audience.
13.
humble; modest: They shared their poor meal with a stranger.
14.
unfortunate; hapless: The poor dog was limping.
–noun
15.
(used with a plural verb) poor persons collectively (usually prec. by the): sympathy for the poor.
—Idioms
16.
poor as a church mouse, extremely poor.
17.
poor as Job's turkey, extremely poor; impoverished.
Origin: 1150–1200; ME pov(e)re < OF povre < L pauper.See pauper
Related forms:
poorness, noun
Synonyms: 1.needy, indigent, necessitous, straitened, destitute, penniless, poverty-stricken. Poor,impecunious,impoverished,penniless refer to those lacking money. Poor is the simple term for the condition of lacking means to obtain the comforts of life: a very poor family. Impecunious often suggests that the poverty is a consequence of unwise habits: an impecunious actor. Impoverished often implies a former state of greater plenty, from which one has been reduced: the impoverished aristocracy. Penniless may mean destitute, or it may apply simply to a temporary condition of being without funds: The widow was left penniless with three small children. 5.meager. 6.unsatisfactory, shabby. 7.sterile, barren, unfruitful, unproductive. 8.thin, skinny, meager, gaunt. 14.miserable, unhappy, pitiable.
Antonyms: 1, 5, 7.rich. 1, 3, 4.wealthy.
Pronunciation note: In the North and North Midland U.S., the vowel of poor is most often/ʊ/Show Spelled Pronunciation[oo]Show IPA. Poor and sure thus contrast with pour and shore: /pʊər/[poor], /ʃʊər/[shoor]versus/pɔr/[pawr], /ʃɔr/[shawr]or/poʊr/[pohr], /ʃoʊr/[shohr]. In the South Midland and South, the vowel of poor is generally/ɔ/[aw]or/oʊ/[oh](often with the final (r) dropped), which means that in these areas, poor and pour are homophones, as are sure and shore. Both types of pronunciation exist in the British Isles.
Having little or no wealth and few or no possessions.
Lacking in a specified resource or quality: an area poor in timber and coal; a diet poor in calcium.
Not adequate in quality; inferior: a poor performance.
Lacking in value; insufficient: poor wages.
Lacking in quantity: poor attendance.
Lacking fertility: poor soil.
Undernourished; lean.
Humble: a poor spirit.
Eliciting or deserving pity; pitiable: couldn't rescue the poor fellow.
n.
(used with a pl. verb) People with little or no wealth and possessions considered as a group: The urban poor are in need of homes.
[Middle English poure, from Old French povre, from Latin pauper; see pau-1 in Indo-European roots.] poor'ness n.
Synonyms: These adjectives mean lacking the money or the means for an adequate or comfortable life. Poor is the most general: "Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness" (Samuel Johnson). Indigent and needy refer to one in need or want: indigent people living on the street; distributed food to needy families. Impecunious and penniless mean having little or no money: "Certainly an impecunious Subaltern was not a catch" (Rudyard Kipling). He made poor investments which left him penniless. One who is impoverished has been reduced to poverty: an impoverished, third-world country. Poverty-stricken means suffering from poverty and miserably poor: refugees living in poverty-stricken camps. Destitute means lacking any means of subsistence: tenants left destitute by the fire.
Usage Note: In informal speech poor is sometimes used as an adverb, as in They never played poorer. In formal usage more poorly would be required in this example.
c.1200, from O.Fr. poure (Fr. pauvre), from L. pauper "poor," perhaps a compound of paucus "little" and parare "to get." Replaced O.E. earm.Poorhouse is from 1781. The poor boy sandwich, made of simple but filling ingredients, was invented and named in New Orleans in 1921. To poor mouth "deny one's advantages" is from 1965 (to make a poor mouth "whine" is Scot. dial. from 1822). Slang poor man's ________ "the cheaper alternative to _______," is from 1854.
[poo
r] 
adjective, -er, -est, noun 
