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Impoverish definition

ĭm-pŏvər-ĭsh, -pŏvrĭsh
impoverishes impoverishing
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Frequency:
To reduce to poverty; make poor.
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To deprive of richness or strength.

Impoverish the soil by overuse.

verb
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To make poor; reduce to poverty.
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To deprive of strength, resources, etc.
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Make poor.
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Weaken in quality; deprive of some strength or richness.

That exuberant crop quickly impoverishes any fertile soil.

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(intransitive) Become poor.
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Origin of impoverish

  • Middle English empoverishen from Old French empovrir empovriss- en- causative pref. en–1 povre poor (from Latin pauper pauper)

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • Borrowing from Old French empoverir (modern French appauvrir), from em- + povre, from Latin pauper (“poor”) (English poor).

    From Wiktionary

Impoverish Sentence Examples

  • They are also gross feeders and impoverish the soil.

  • Their worldly circumstances were easy, though they were always ready to impoverish themselves for the sake of others.

  • Many regions suffer permanently from deficient rainfall; in others, owing to the absence of irrigation works, the water supply is lost, while the burning of the grass at the end of summer, a practice adopted by many farmers, tends to impoverish the soil and render it arid.

  • Two parts must not move in consecutive octaves or fifths, because by so doing they unaccountably reinforce each other by an amount by which they impoverish the rest of the harmony.

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