Skip to content
HOW TO PRONOUNCE

poor

/puɹ/

Press play to hear how to pronounce poor.

American Pronunciation Guide · 1:05
Watch on YouTube ↗

What does poor mean?

adjective

  1. With no or few possessions or money, particularly in relation to contemporaries who do have them.
  2. Of low quality.
  3. Worthy of pity.
More meanings (11)

adjective

  1. Deficient in a specified way.
  2. Inadequate, insufficient.
  3. Free from self-assertion; not proud or arrogant; meek.

noun

  1. The poor people of a society or the world collectively, the poor class of a society.
  2. the second-to-last placer in Tycoon
  3. A poor person.
  4. (obsolete) Synonym of poor cod.

proper noun

  1. A surname

verb

  1. (rare) Synonym of impoverish, to make poor.
  2. (obsolete) To become poor.
  3. (obsolete) To call someone poor.

Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0

IPA pronunciation

/puɹ/

CMU Pronouncing Dictionary

Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.

In the pages of books

See this word in context.

I have no language to express the high excitement and deep anxiety which were felt among us poor slaves during this time.
Frederick DouglassNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American SlaveProject Gutenberg ebook #23
He speculated, lost his own fortune and funds entrusted to him by poor seafaring men, and died disgraced, leaving his children nothing.
Willa CatherO Pioneers!Project Gutenberg ebook #24
More book examples (3)
“I’ve been in great trouble, neighbours, and was driven to it. I used not to be so poor as I be now.”
Thomas HardyFar from the Madding CrowdProject Gutenberg ebook #27
Then she bewailed the marriage bed whereon Poor wretch, she had conceived a double brood, Husband by husband, children by her child.
SophoclesPlays of Sophocles: Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus; AntigoneTranslated by Francis StorrProject Gutenberg ebook #31
Here was poor old Terry fondly imagining that at last he was free to stray in “a rosebud garden of girls”--and behold!
Charlotte Perkins GilmanHerlandProject Gutenberg ebook #32