pauper

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin pauper (“poor, not wealthy; a poor person”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The Latin adjective is thought to be an old compound meaning "getting or providing little",^[7][3][8] with a first element from the same base as paucus (“few, little”).^[2][9][3] Its second element is related, in the OED, Klein and Weekley, to pariō (“to bring forth, produce”),^[2][9][10] and, in Ayto and Skeat, to parō (“to get, prepare”).^[7][11] De Vaan reconstructs the compound as Proto-Indo-European *peh₂u-(o-)p(o)rh₃-o-.^[8] Through Old French povre, the same Latin word also gave poor, so the two are doublets.^[9][3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person with no property or means of livelihood; a beggar: 1516.^[2][3][12] The Shorter Oxford, the Oxford Dictionary of English and Dictionary.com put the word in the late 15th century.^[13][14][15]

Semantic evolution

Barnhart, Etymonline, Weekley and the Oxford Dictionary of English explain the English use as coming from the legal phrase Latin in fōrmā pauperis (“in the form of a poor person”), said of someone allowed because of poverty to sue or defend in court without paying costs;^{[3][4][10][14]} the phrase appears in the heading of an Act of 1495.^[2] The OED's own record has the general sense first, in 1516, and the legal one, a person so allowed, only in 1631.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined a pauper as a poor person who receives alms.^[16] From 1775 the word was used specifically of those relieved under the Poor Law or by public charity, a use now historical,^[2][17] and the 19th century formed pauperism and pauperize on it.^[13] In later use the sense weakened to anyone very poor.^[2]

Timeline

• 1495 – the phrase in formā pauperis, in the heading of an Act.^[2]
• 1516 – a destitute person; a beggar.^[2][3][12]
• 1631 – in law, a person allowed to sue or defend without paying costs.^[2]
• 1690 – adjective, destitute.^[2]
• 1775 – a person receiving poor relief or public charity.^[2]
• 1841 – verb, to make a pauper of.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A very poor person: The failed scheme left him a pauper.^[17][12][2]
2. A person who depends on charity, especially (historical) one who received relief under the Poor Law or from public funds.^[12][17][2]
3. (law) A person allowed because of poverty to sue or defend in forma pauperis, without paying costs.^[12][2][13]

Adjective

1. Destitute; of or for paupers.^[2][12]

Verb

1. To make a pauper of; to pauperize.^[12][2]

Word family

• pauperism
• pauperage
• dispauper
• pauperize

Related words

• depauperate
• poor
• poverty
• few
• parent

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins