impoverish

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English empoverishen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French empoveriss-, the lengthened stem of empoverir (“to make poor”),^[5][6][7][8] which is formed from em- and povre (“poor”),^[5][3][4] from Latin pauper.^[9][10] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the late 12th century.^[11] The ending is the English -ish, which represents that stem.^[4][6] The spelling with im- imitates Latin and is found in Middle English before 1443.^[4] Middle English also had empoveren, with the same sense,^[3][2] and poverished (“made poor”), from the late 14th century.^[3] In French the verb is now French empauvrir, according to the OED and Hoad,^[5][6] and Weekley says that it was replaced by appauvrir.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make poor: before 1420, in Lydgate's Troy Book, where Fortune can "þe riche emporische".^[2][4] The OED's first quotation is from 1440, in John Shirley's account of the death of James Stewart.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The sense "reduce to poverty" has lasted from the start, and the Middle English verb could already be figurative.^[2] In the early 17th century it was also used of a stock of wealth, to reduce or diminish it (1611–61), and of a place or person, to strip of some form of wealth (1612–1726), both in John Speed and both now obsolete.^[5] The sense that has survived beside the first is the wider one of weakening something's quality or productiveness, which the OED first records in a sermon by John Donne from before 1631,^[5] and which today is often said of soil that has lost its fertility.^[13][14]

Timeline

• before 1420 – to make poor, as emporische in Lydgate's Troy Book.^[2][4] The OED's first record is from 1440.^[5]
• 1435 – the form empoverisshen, in the Rolls of Parliament.^[4]
• before 1443 – the spelling with im-.^[4]
• 1611 – to reduce wealth or a stock of something (obsolete by 1661).^[5]
• 1612 – to strip of some form of wealth (obsolete by 1726).^[5]
• before 1631 – to make weak or poor in quality or productiveness.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make poor; to reduce to poverty: Years of drought impoverished the valley's farmers.^[13][14][5]
2. To exhaust the strength or richness of something, or to lower its quality: Budget cuts would impoverish the town's cultural life.^[13][14][5]
3. To deprive soil of its fertility: Growing the same crop every year impoverished the land.^[13][14]

Word family

• impoverishment
• impoverisher

Related words

• poor
• poverty
• pauper

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster