the lack of sufficient money or material possessions for a life of moderate comfort
the renunciation of individual property by a person entering a religious order
Economists have tended to distinguish between conditions of absolute poverty, under which living standards are low according to an objective measure of human needs; or relative poverty under which living standards are low relative to the society in which they are sustained — Evan Davis
formal
a scarcity
a poverty of ideas and images
the condition of lacking desirable elements; deficiency
the poverty of our critical vocabulary
[Middle English poverte via Old French from Latin paupertat-, paupertas, from pauper: see poor]