Word.ws English Dictionary

impoverish

/ɪmˈpɒv(ə)ɹɪʃ/

impoverish verb: to make poor.

Verb

impoverish (third-person singular simple present impoverishes, present participle impoverishing, simple past and past participle impoverished)

  1. (transitive) To make poor.
    Antonyms:
    enrich
  2. (transitive) To weaken in quality; to deprive of some strength or richness.
    • That exuberant crop quickly impoverishes any fertile soil.
    • To many of us, organized religion is obnoxious. Yet if we throw out the sense of peace, order and joy that flows from religious ritual, we impoverish ourselves.1979 December 22, Nancy Walker, “The Reaffirmation of Life”, in Gay Community News, volume 2, number 22, page 16
    Synonyms:
    deplete
  3. (intransitive) To become poor.

impoverish meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

impoverish in Tamil

நலிவூட்டு, ஏழ்மையாக்கு, உடை

impoverish in Urdu

غریب بنانا

impoverish in Bengali

দরিদ্র করা, নিঃস্ব করা, শক্তি, উর্বরতা হ্রাস করা

impoverish in Malayalam

ക്ഷീണിപ്പിക്കുക, വീര്യം കെടുത്തുക, ദരിദ്രനാക്കുക, നിസ്വനാക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
impoverish in Kannada
ಬಡತನ ತರು, ಸೊಪ್ಪಿಸು, ಸೊರಗಿಸು, ಕೊರಗಿಸು
impoverish in Arabic
أَفْقَر ʔafqar

Synonyms of impoverish

3 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of impoverish

Forms of impoverish

third-person singular presentimpoverishes
present participleimpoverishing
past participleimpoverished
pastimpoverished

Origin of impoverish

From Middle English empoverishen, impoverishen, empoverischen, enpoverisshen, Anglo-Norman empoveriss-, from Old French empoverir, from em- + povre, from Latin pauper (“poor”) (English poor).

Words formed from impoverish

Questions about impoverish

What does impoverish mean?
Impoverish means to make poor.
What is impoverish in Tamil?
Impoverish in Tamil is நலிவூட்டு, ஏழ்மையாக்கு, உடை. See Impoverish meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is impoverish?
Impoverish is a verb.
How do you pronounce impoverish?
Impoverish is pronounced /ɪmˈpɒv(ə)ɹɪʃ/.
What is the past tense of impoverish?
The past tense of impoverish is impoverished.

Words near impoverish in the dictionary

  1. impoundings
  2. impoundment
  3. impoundments
  4. impounds
  5. IMPOV
  6. impoverish
  7. impoverished
  8. impoverishedly
  9. impoverishedness
  10. impoverishee
  11. impoverishees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: impoverish (page history and authors); impoverish (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); impoverish (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Impoverish (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); impoverish (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); impoverish (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-impoverish.oga.

Cite this entry: “impoverish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/impoverish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.