Underresourced

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Lacking enough money, staff, equipment, or other necessary supplies to function effectively
2. Not supplied with adequate funding, personnel, or materials needed to carry out its work
3. Short of the financial and material means required to operate or provide services properly

Etymology: "Underresourced" is a plain English formation: the prefix "under-", meaning "insufficiently" or "not enough", attached to "resourced", the past participle of "resource" used as an adjective. Its literal sense is "not supplied with enough resources," a description of a school, clinic, or project that lacks money, staff, or equipment. The prefix itself is ancient. Under-, in its earliest form, descends from a Proto-Germanic root meaning "below" or "among," and it passed into Old English as a word meaning "under," preserved in English under the spelling under-. Attached to verbs and adjectives, it came to mean "too little" or "beneath the proper amount," as in "undercooked" or "underpaid," and "underresourced" follows that pattern. The base word, "resource," has a longer and more surprising path. It came into English from French, and the French ultimately traces to Latin "resurgere," meaning "to rise again," so its original sense was a resurgence or a recovery. Only later did it come to mean a supply one can draw on, and that resource-as-stock sense is what "underresourced" depends on.

Synonyms: underfunded, understaffed, ill-equipped

Antonyms: well-resourced, well-funded