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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Poorness

Poorness \Poor"ness\, n. The quality or state of being poor (in any of the senses of the adjective).
--Bacon.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
poorness

late 13c., from poor (adj.) + -ness.

Wiktionary
poorness

n. 1 The quality of being poor 2 poverty

WordNet
poorness
  1. n. the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions [syn: poverty, impoverishment] [ant: wealth]

  2. less than adequate; "the relative poorness of New England farmland"

  3. the quality of being meager; "an exiguity of cloth that would only allow of miniature capes"-George Eliot [syn: meagerness, meagreness, scantiness, scantness, exiguity]

  4. the quality of being poorly made or maintained; "she was unrecognizable because of the poorness of the photography"

Usage examples of "poorness".

Therese, seeing that he was posing as master of the field, and that his manners disgusted me, began to snub him, much to his displeasure, and after sneering at the poorness of the dishes, and praising the wine which he had supplied, he went out leaving us to finish our dessert by ourselves.

On the vast lapse of time, as inferred from the rate of deposition and of denudation -- On the poorness of our palaeontological collections -- On the intermittence of geological formations -- On the absence of intermediate varieties in any one formation -- On the sudden appearance of groups of species -- On their sudden appearance in the lowest known fossiliferous strata.

Oh he was princely indeed: that came out more and more with every word he said and with the particular way he said it, and Maisie could feel his monitress stiffen almost with anguish against the increase of his spell and then hurl herself as a desperate defence from it into the quite confessed poorness of violence, of iteration.

Therese, seeing that he was posing as master of the field, and that his manners disgusted me, began to snub him, much to his displeasure, and after sneering at the poorness of the dishes, and praising the wine which he had supplied, he went out leaving us to finish our dessert by ourselves.

On the vast lapse of time, as inferred from the rate of deposition and of denudation -- On the poorness of our palaeontological collections -- On the intermittence of geological formations -- On the absence of intermediate varieties in any one formation -- On the sudden appearance of groups of species -- On their sudden appearance in the lowest known fossiliferous strata.