adj
Meaning 1
Lacking something; devoid.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: barren, empty, void
Antonyms: none provided
Standard Lemma guide
destitute
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
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/ˈdɛstɪtʃuːt/ yod-coalescence
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/ˈdɛstɪtjuːt/ without the yod-coalescence
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UK: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
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General-American: /ˈdɛstɪtuːt/
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US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
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CMU ARPABET: D EH1 S T AH0 T UW2 T Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.
adj
Meaning 2
Lacking money, poor, impoverished; especially, extremely so.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Examples
- Near-synonym: penniless
- May 24, 2018, Alex Vadukul in The New York Times, The Forgotten Entertainer Rag
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: beggared, impecunious, skint, almsless, arm, badly off, bankrupt, beggarly, boracic, broke, broken, broker than the Ten Commandments, depauperate, destitute, dirt poor, disadvantaged, down and out, down at heel, down on one's luck, down on one's uppers, empty-handed, farthingless, feeling the pinch, flat, goodless, groatless, hard up, impoverished, in need, indigent, insolvent, lower-class, moneyless, necessitous, needy, oofless, pauperized, penniless, penurious, pinched, pok kai, poor, poor as a church mouse, poor as a rat, poor as Job, possessionless, poverty-ridden, poverty-stricken, shillingless, stone-broke, stony-broke, strapped, stuck, threadbare, unwealthy, wealthless
Antonyms: none provided
verb
Meaning 3
To impoverish; to strip of wealth, resources, etc.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: transitive
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: depauperate, pauperize, ruin, beggar, depauperize, destitute, embeggar, empoverish, immiserate, impoor, impoverish, poor, poverish
Antonyms: none provided
adjective satellite
Meaning 4
completely wanting or lacking
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
Examples
- writing barren of insight
- young recruits destitute of experience
- innocent of literary merit
- the sentence was devoid of meaning
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: barren, devoid, free, innocent
Antonyms: none provided
adjective satellite
Meaning 5
poor enough to need help from others
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: impoverished, indigent, necessitous, needy, poverty-stricken
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
From Middle English destitute, destitut, from Latin dēstitūtus.
From Middle English destituten, from the adjective (see above).
Across languages
Translations
21 source translations are retained for this English entry.
- Finnish: vailla — lacking something, devoid
- Polish: pozbawiony (czegoś) — lacking something, devoid
- Spanish: indigente — lacking something, devoid
- Spanish: destituido — lacking something, devoid
- Spanish: desprovisto — lacking something, devoid
- Dutch: onbemiddeld — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- Finnish: varaton — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- Finnish: köyhä — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- French: démuni — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- French: indigent — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- Hindi: निराश्रित (nirāśrit) — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- Polish: ubogi — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- Spanish: no tener donde caerse muerto — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- Spanish: muerto de hambre — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- Ottoman Turkish: یوقسول (yoksul) — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- Ottoman Turkish: فقیر (fakir) — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- Ukrainian: бідний (bidnyj) — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- Ukrainian: нужденний (nuždennyj) — poor, impoverished, poverty-stricken
- Finnish: köyhdyttää — to impoverish
- Spanish: destituir — to impoverish
- Spanish: desproveer — to impoverish
Real reading context