The Definition of Poverty Essay - 644 Words

What are the definitions of poor and poverty? Many people hear the words poverty and have different meanings, so how do we know which definition and I poor is the correct one? According to many people poverty may mean a person who does not have any money to do the things they want to do, however most people can afford to live only on the things they truly need. This is just one example; there are many other definitions of the word poverty. Then what do people consider to be the meaning of the word poor? Some may say poor is not having enough money for that extra something at the supermarket or at the mall. What exactly are the true definitions of each word, and how do you tell the words apart and how do you know what to†¦show more content†¦So how do we know that both of these are true meanings of the word poverty? It could also be an educated guess as the word poor. I believe we must take the learned definitions of each word and merge them with our own opinions and th e situations in which they are used to come to an accurate definition. In the beginning of my research of the word poor I had just thought that the word meant not having anything, digging through garbage for food and living in the streets. I always thought about the children advertised on the television that had no food and were nothing but skin and bones; however in my research using the (OED) I found the word poor can mean many different things like having only few materials needing the things that provide the comforts or the nessecities needed in human life so as in doing the research I have done it has changed my mind a little and in a way has me confused about the true meaning of the two words. As I have described poor in the last paragraph I have also thought about the meanin of the word poverty and how closely the two definitions are related they both mean to me having little or nothing, not having the nessecities needed in life they both mean having little or no wealth, the y can also mean having poor condition of the body. I believe that is why the English language is so distinctShow MoreRelatedThe Definition of Poverty554 Words   |  2 PagesGordon (2007) twelve clusters of meaning of poverty evidently proved how the definition of poverty seems difficult to be established, the debates on poverty have been bedeviled by an artificial formalism, which insists that there is only one agreed meaning of poverty. However poverty does not attract a single meaning. 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