poverty grass

2 definitions found

poverty grass - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Poverty \Pov"er*ty\ (p[o^]v"[~e]r*t[y^]), n. [OE. poverte, OF.
     povert['e], F. pauvret['e], fr. L. paupertas, fr. pauper
     poor. See Poor.]
     1. The quality or state of being poor or indigent; want or
        scarcity of means of subsistence; indigence; need.
        "Swathed in numblest poverty." --Keble.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty.
                                                    --Prov. xxiii.
                                                    21.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or
        desired, or that constitute richness; as, poverty of soil;
        poverty of the blood; poverty of ideas.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Poverty grass (Bot.), a name given to several slender
        grasses (as Aristida dichotoma, and Danthonia spicata)
        which often spring up on old and worn-out fields.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: Indigence; penury; beggary; need; lack; want;
          scantiness; sparingness; meagerness; jejuneness.
  
     Usage: Poverty, Indigence, Pauperism. Poverty is a
            relative term; what is poverty to a monarch, would be
            competence for a day laborer. Indigence implies
            extreme distress, and almost absolute destitution.
            Pauperism denotes entire dependence upon public
            charity, and, therefore, often a hopeless and degraded
            state.
            [1913 Webster] Powan

poverty grass - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  poverty grass
      n 1: small heathlike plant covered with white down growing on
           beaches in northeastern North America [syn: beach heather
           , poverty grass, Hudsonia tomentosa]