poverty

n.

1. Want of earthly goods

   destitution, want, indigence, penury, need, beggary, pennilessness, neediness, mendicancy, pauperism, insufficiency, starvation, famine, hunger, underdevelopment, dearth, privation, reduced circumstances, insolvency, impoverishment, impecuniousness, broken fortune, straits, financial distress, hardship, deficiency, meagerness, aridity, exiguity, stint, depletion, deficit, debt, poorness, hand-to-mouth existence, wolf at the door*, deep water*, hard spot*, pinch*, bite*, crunch*, tough going*; see also lack 1.

   Antonyms wealth*, prosperity*, comfort. *

2. Want of any desirable thing

   shortage, shortness, insufficiency, inadequacy, exigency, scarcity, incompleteness, failing, defect; see also lack 2.

poverty, the broadest of these terms, implies a lack of the resources for reasonably comfortable living; destitution and want imply such great poverty that the means for mere subsistence, such as food and shelter, are lacking; indigence, a somewhat euphemistic term, implies a lack of comforts that one formerly enjoyed; penury suggests such severe poverty as to cause misery or a loss of self-respect