Poor

How to spell poor

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce poor

What does poor mean?

1. adjectiveHaving little money or few material possessions.
2. adjectiveOf a low or inadequate standard; not good enough.

Poor in a sentence

• The charity supports families who are too poor to afford heating.

• The report was rejected because of its poor structure and weak evidence.

• He grew up in a poor household where every penny mattered.

• The hotel received bad reviews for its poor service.

Where does poor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin pauper, which literally meant 'producing little' or 'not wealthy', a sense built from elements suggesting one who brings forth only small means. It travelled into English through Old French, where it appeared as povre and later poure, arriving in Middle English in the 1200s. Over time the spelling settled on the doubled vowel 'oo', which is what makes it sound the same as the unrelated words 'pour' and 'pore' yet look quite different on the page. The very same Latin root still lives inside the modern words 'poverty' and 'impoverish', and noticing that family link helps fix the spelling, since you can hear the 'poor' inside 'poverty'. The word broadened early from purely financial lack to mean anything inadequate or of low quality, a use that remains everyday English.

How the word is built

• poor (single root from Old French povre / Latin pauper, meaning 'not wealthy'); no prefix or suffix