poverty-stricken, impoverished, necessitous, beggarly, in penury, penurious, impecunious, indigent, needy, needful, in need, in want, badly off, in reduced circumstances, in straitened circumstances, destitute, hard up, short of money, on one's beam-ends, unable to make ends meet, underprivileged, deprived, penniless, without a sou, as poor as a church mouse, moneyless