Impoverishing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The action of diminishing economic status or well-being The process of stripping away financial resources or means The condition of leading to a decrease in prosperity or wealth
2. The process of reducing an individual's or a group's financial resources or overall wealth
3. The act of seriously reducing someone's financial assets or economic status

Etymology: The root of this word is a simple chain of pieces: "pauper" meant "poor" in Latin, and it passed into Old French as "povre," the ancestor of English "poor." Old French then built "empoverir," which added the prefix "em-" to "povre" to mean "to make poor." English borrowed that verb in Middle English under forms such as "empoverishen" and "impoverishen," and the Anglo-Norman spelling "empoveriss-" shows the same French source at work. The word has no hidden twist: it is a verb built on the same stem as "poor," with a causative prefix and a Romance-language detour. Its current form keeps the Middle English "im-" spelling, which settled over the older "em-" forms. The "-ing" ending is simply what turns the verb into a participle or gerund, which is how it appears in sentences such as "impoverishing policies."

Synonyms: depleting, destituting, bankrupting, ruining

Antonyms: enriching, wealth-giving, prospering, uplifting