adjective (poorer, poorest)
having little money
1 having very little money; not having enough money for basic needs:
They were too poor to buy shoes for the kids. * We aim to help the poorest families. * It's among the poorer countries of the world.
OPPRICH
2 (the poor) noun [pl.] people who have very little money:
They provided food and shelter for the poor.
OPPRICH
unfortunate
3 [onlybeforenoun] (especially spoken) deserving pity and sympathy:
Have you heard about poor old Harry? His wife's left him. * It's hungry-the poor little thing. * 'I have stacks of homework to do.' 'Oh, you poor thing.'
not good
4 not good; of a quality that is low or lower than expected:
the party's poor performance in the election * to be in poor health / condition * It was raining heavily and visibility was poor. * poor food / light / soil * to have a poor opinion of sb (= to not think well of sb)
5 (of a person) not good or skilled at sth:
a poor swimmer * a poor judge of character * She's a good teacher but a poor manager. * a poor sailor (= sb who easily gets sick at sea)
having little of sth
6 ~ in sth having very small amounts of sth:
a country poor in natural resources * soil poor in nutrients
OPPRICH
IDIOMS
be / come a poor second, third, etc. (especially BrE) to finish a long way behind the winner in a race, competition, etc.
the poor man's sb / sth a person or thing that is similar to but of a lower quality than a particular famous person or thing:
Sparkling white wine is the poor man's champagne.
moreatACCOUNTn.
Rate this entry
About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for poor is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Does poor appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — poor appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
