(n.) The state of being poor or dependence on charity; the state of indigent persons requiring support from the community.
Thesaurus Entries
bare cupboard, bare subsistence, beggarliness, beggary, deprivation, destitution, empty purse, grinding poverty, gripe, hand-to-mouth existence, homelessness, impecuniousness, impoverishment, indigence, lack, mendicancy, moneylessness, necessitousness, necessity, need, neediness, pauperization, penury, pinch, privation, want
