Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Poverty \Pov"er*ty\ (p[o^]v"[~e]r*t[y^]), n. [OE. poverte, OF.
   povert['e], F. pauvret['e], fr. L. paupertas, fr. pauper
   poor. See {Poor}.]
   1. The quality or state of being poor or indigent; want or
      scarcity of means of subsistence; indigence; need.
      ``Swathed in numblest poverty.'' --Keble.

            The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty.
                                                  --Prov. xxiii.
                                                  21.

   2. Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or
      desired, or that constitute richness; as, poverty of soil;
      poverty of the blood; poverty of ideas.

   {Poverty grass} (Bot.), a name given to several slender
      grasses (as {Aristida dichotoma}, and {Danthonia spicata})
      which often spring up on old and worn-out fields.

   Syn: Indigence; penury; beggary; need; lack; want;
        scantiness; sparingness; meagerness; jejuneness.

   Usage: {Poverty}, {Indigence}, {Pauperism}. Poverty is a
          relative term; what is poverty to a monarch, would be
          competence for a day laborer. Indigence implies
          extreme distress, and almost absolute destitution.
          Pauperism denotes entire dependence upon public
          charity, and, therefore, often a hopeless and degraded
          state.