ˈpoverty-ˌstricken, a.
Stricken or afflicted with poverty; suffering from poverty; reduced to great poverty; extremely poor or destitute.
| 1803 M. Wilmot Let. 1 Oct. in Russ. Jrnls. (1934) i. 55 Amidst such a multitude of titles a count or countess is often the merest poverty stricken low bread [sic] animal that ever was known. 1844 Dickens Mart. Chuz. xv, Badged and ticketed as an utterly poverty-stricken man. 1867 Trollope Chron. Barset I. iv. 27 A wretched poverty-stricken room. 1956 Railway Mag. Nov. 739/2 The original promoters of the Port & Pier Railway could hardly have visualised their poverty-stricken child playing such an important role as it was destined to do! |
| fig. 1852 H. Rogers Ecl. Faith (1853) 44 If you profess..the possession of the pure truth, do not appear to be so poverty-stricken as to array your thoughts in the tatters of the cast-off Bible. 1865 Tylor Early Hist. Man. v. 101 A language so poverty-stricken as the Chinese. |