Word.ws English Dictionary

poverty-struck

poverty-struck adjective: poverty-stricken; very poor.

Adjective

poverty-struck (comparative more poverty-struck, superlative most poverty-struck)

  1. (uncommon) Poverty-stricken; very poor.
    • I warrant—Such Poverty-ſtruck Devils as you ſhan't ſtay in my Houſe—you ſhall go to Quod, I can tell you that—1756, Arthur Murphy, The Apprentice. A Farce, in Two Acts, Dublin: […] W. Smith; J. Exshaw; R. James, page 25
    • A more curious figure cannot be conceived than I made; for, my poverty-struck and half-starved appearance was so contrasted with my active pace and flowing spirits, that I bore more the stamp of a lunatic than any thing else.1802, William Templeton, chapter XI, in The Strolling Player; or, Life and Adventures of William Templeton, volume I, London: […] B. McMillan, […] H.D. Symonds, page 265

Examples of poverty-struck in a sentence

  • […] the poverty-struck appearance of these appendages is disgraceful to the structure, and even the excuse of utility is wanted to apologise for their excessive meanness.1828 July, “St. Katharine's”, in The Gentleman's Magazine, volume XCVIII, page 9:
  • Why had she wanted me to think her only a poverty-struck little liar?1997 November, William Lashner, Veritas, Harper Paperbacks, page 42:

Forms of poverty-struck

comparativemore poverty-struck
superlativemost poverty-struck

Questions about poverty-struck

What does poverty-struck mean?
Poverty-struck means poverty-stricken; very poor.
How do you use poverty-struck in a sentence?
[…] the poverty-struck appearance of these appendages is disgraceful to the structure, and even the excuse of utility is wanted to apologise for their excessive meanness.
What part of speech is poverty-struck?
Poverty-struck is an adjective.

Words near poverty-struck in the dictionary

  1. Poverty Row
  2. poverty trap
  3. poverty traps
  4. poverty-ridden
  5. poverty-stricken
  6. poverty-struck
  7. povertyism
  8. povertyweed
  9. Povey
  10. Povh
  11. poviat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poverty-struck (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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