Impoverished

How to spell impoverished

12 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce impoverished

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does impoverished mean?

1. adjectiveMade very poor, or drained of strength, richness, or resources.

Impoverished in a sentence

• The charity provides meals to impoverished families across the city.

• Decades of conflict left the region economically impoverished.

Where does impoverished come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Latin pauper, meaning 'poor' or 'lacking means', which is also the ancestor of the English words 'poverty' and 'pauper'. The verb arrived through Old French, where empoverir meant 'to make poor', formed from the prefix en- (to make or put into) and povre, the Old French word for 'poor'. English took up the verb 'impoverish' in the 1400s, and the past participle 'impoverished' came to serve as an adjective describing someone or something reduced to poverty. Over time its meaning broadened beyond money to include any kind of depletion, so soil, language, or even an experience can be described as impoverished. The spelling trap lies in the middle: the silent stretch around -pover- and the -ished ending, where the schwa vowels give writers no clear clue to the letters that belong there.

How the word is built

• im- (en-, to make)
• pover- (poor, from Latin pauper)
• -ish (verb-forming)
• -ed (past participle/adjective)