DESTITUTE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does destitute mean? 

• DESTITUTE (adjective)
  The adjective DESTITUTE has 2 senses:

1. poor enough to need help from others

2. completely wanting or lacking

  Familiarity information: DESTITUTE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DESTITUTE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Poor enough to need help from others

Synonyms:

destitute; impoverished; indigent; necessitous; needy; poverty-stricken

Similar:

poor (having little money or few possessions)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Completely wanting or lacking

Synonyms:

barren; destitute; devoid; free; innocent

Context example:

the sentence was devoid of meaning

Similar:

nonexistent (not having existence or being or actuality)

 Context examples 

What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and penniless?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

You are very kind, I am sure; and I wish with all my heart it may prove so, for else they will be destitute enough.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

You may imagine, Mr. Holmes, that to me, destitute as I was, such an offer seemed almost too good to be true.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I felt more miserable and destitute than I had done at any period of my running away.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I wish to soothe him, yet can I counsel one so infinitely miserable, so destitute of every hope of consolation, to live?

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

'First Principles is not wholly destitute of a certain literary power,' said one of them.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Home now looked bare and dismal as she thought of it, work grew harder than ever, and she felt that she was a very destitute and much-injured girl, in spite of the new gloves and silk stockings.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

To this neighbourhood, then, I came, quite destitute.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

At length I was moving quietly towards the door, with the intention of saying that perhaps I should consult his feelings best by withdrawing: when he said, with his hands in his coat pockets, into which it was as much as he could do to get them; and with what I should call, upon the whole, a decidedly pious air: You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield, that I am not altogether destitute of worldly possessions, and that my daughter is my nearest and dearest relative?

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She did pity the Davis girls, who were awkward, plain, and destitute of escort, except a grim papa and three grimmer maiden aunts, and she bowed to them in her friendliest manner as she passed, which was good of her, as it permitted them to see her dress, and burn with curiosity to know who her distinguished-looking friend might be.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)