Word.ws English Dictionary

poor power

poor power noun: limited ability.

Noun

poor power (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) Limited ability.
    • The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.1863 November 19, Abraham Lincoln, Dedicatory Remarks (Gettysburg Address)^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address_(Bliss_copy)), near Soldiers' National Cemetery, →LCCN, Bliss copy, page 2
    • Gibbie held her fast, and with all the ways in his poor power sought to comfort her.1879, George MacDonald, chapter 52, in Sir Gibbie

Examples of poor power in a sentence

  • Heavy as was her burden, not one feather's weight of it should he carry, if by any means in her poor power she could hold it from his back.1890, H. Rider Haggard, chapter 26, in Beatrice:
  • "It is beyond the poor power of lawyers to dissolve it."1986 May 19, “Fund Finishes Half a Century of Philanthropy with a Party”, in New York Times, retrieved 07 Mar 2014:

Questions about poor power

What does poor power mean?
Poor power means limited ability.
How do you use poor power in a sentence?
Heavy as was her burden, not one feather's weight of it should he carry, if by any means in her poor power she could hold it from his back.
What part of speech is poor power?
Poor power is a noun.

Words near poor power in the dictionary

  1. poor mouth
  2. poor mouthed
  3. poor mouthing
  4. poor mouths
  5. poor old
  6. poor power
  7. poor pussy
  8. poor rate
  9. poor rates
  10. poor relation
  11. poor relations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poor power (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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