| English Dictionary |
INDIGENT
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| IPA (US): |  |
Dictionary entry overview: What does indigent mean?
• INDIGENT (adjective)
The adjective INDIGENT has 1 sense:
1. poor enough to need help from others
Familiarity information: INDIGENT used as an adjective is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
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)
Derivation:
indigence (a state of extreme poverty or destitution)
Context examples
She had not spirits to notice her in more than a few repulsive looks, but she felt her as a spy, and an intruder, and an indigent niece, and everything most odious.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
They exploit for fame or cash the work which has been done by their indigent and unknown brethren.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them: say, 'Mr. Rochester might probably win that noble lady's love, if he chose to strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this indigent and insignificant plebeian?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
| Learn English with... Proverbs |
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." (Maimonides)
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"If a caged bird isn't singing for love, it's singing in a rage." (Corsican proverb)