Poverty in Different Languages
Discover 'Poverty' in 134 Languages: Dive into Translations, Hear Pronunciations, and Uncover Cultural Insights.
Poverty
Afrikaans armoede | ||
Albanian varfëria | ||
Amharic ድህነት | ||
Arabic الفقر | ||
Armenian աղքատություն | ||
Assamese দৰিদ্ৰতা | ||
Aymara pisinkaña | ||
Azerbaijani yoxsulluq | ||
Bambara faantanya | ||
Basque pobrezia | ||
Belarusian галеча | ||
Bengali দারিদ্র্য | ||
Bhojpuri गरीबी | ||
Bosnian siromaštvo | ||
Bulgarian бедност | ||
Catalan pobresa | ||
Cebuano kakabus | ||
Chinese (Simplified) 贫穷 | ||
Chinese (Traditional) 貧窮 | ||
Corsican puvertà | ||
Croatian siromaštvo | ||
Czech chudoba | ||
Danish fattigdom | ||
Dhivehi ފަޤީރުކަން | ||
Dogri गरीबी | ||
Dutch armoede | ||
English poverty | ||
Esperanto malriĉeco | ||
Estonian vaesus | ||
Ewe ahedada | ||
Filipino (Tagalog) kahirapan | ||
Finnish köyhyys | ||
French la pauvreté | ||
Frisian earmoed | ||
Galician pobreza | ||
Georgian სიღარიბე | ||
German armut | ||
Greek φτώχεια | ||
Guarani mboriahureko | ||
Gujarati ગરીબી | ||
Haitian Creole povrete | ||
Hausa talauci | ||
Hawaiian ʻilihune | ||
Hebrew עוני | ||
Hindi दरिद्रता | ||
Hmong kev txom nyem | ||
Hungarian szegénység | ||
Icelandic fátækt | ||
Igbo ịda ogbenye | ||
Ilocano kinakurapay | ||
Indonesian kemiskinan | ||
Irish bochtaineacht | ||
Italian povertà | ||
Japanese 貧困 | ||
Javanese mlarat | ||
Kannada ಬಡತನ | ||
Kazakh кедейлік | ||
Khmer ភាពក្រីក្រ | ||
Kinyarwanda ubukene | ||
Konkani गरिबी | ||
Korean 가난 | ||
Krio po | ||
Kurdish bêmalî | ||
Kurdish (Sorani) هەژاری | ||
Kyrgyz жакырчылык | ||
Lao ຄວາມທຸກຍາກ | ||
Latin paupertās | ||
Latvian nabadzība | ||
Lingala bobola | ||
Lithuanian skurdas | ||
Luganda obwaavu | ||
Luxembourgish aarmut | ||
Macedonian сиромаштијата | ||
Maithili गरीबी | ||
Malagasy fahantrana | ||
Malay kemiskinan | ||
Malayalam ദാരിദ്ര്യം | ||
Maltese faqar | ||
Maori rawakore | ||
Marathi दारिद्र्य | ||
Meiteilon (Manipuri) ꯂꯥꯏꯔꯕ | ||
Mizo retheihna | ||
Mongolian ядуурал | ||
Myanmar (Burmese) ဆင်းရဲမွဲတေမှု | ||
Nepali गरीबी | ||
Norwegian fattigdom | ||
Nyanja (Chichewa) umphawi | ||
Odia (Oriya) ଦାରିଦ୍ର୍ୟ | ||
Oromo hiyyummaa | ||
Pashto غربت | ||
Persian فقر | ||
Polish ubóstwo | ||
Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil) pobreza | ||
Punjabi ਗਰੀਬੀ | ||
Quechua wakcha kay | ||
Romanian sărăcie | ||
Russian бедность | ||
Samoan mativa | ||
Sanskrit निर्धनता | ||
Scots Gaelic bochdainn | ||
Sepedi bodiidi | ||
Serbian сиромаштво | ||
Sesotho bofuma | ||
Shona urombo | ||
Sindhi غربت | ||
Sinhala (Sinhalese) දරිද්රතා | ||
Slovak chudoba | ||
Slovenian revščina | ||
Somali saboolnimada | ||
Spanish pobreza | ||
Sundanese kamiskinan | ||
Swahili umaskini | ||
Swedish fattigdom | ||
Tagalog (Filipino) kahirapan | ||
Tajik камбизоатӣ | ||
Tamil வறுமை | ||
Tatar ярлылык | ||
Telugu పేదరికం | ||
Thai ความยากจน | ||
Tigrinya ድኽነት | ||
Tsonga vusweti | ||
Turkish yoksulluk | ||
Turkmen garyplyk | ||
Twi (Akan) ohia | ||
Ukrainian бідність | ||
Urdu غربت | ||
Uyghur نامراتلىق | ||
Uzbek qashshoqlik | ||
Vietnamese nghèo nàn | ||
Welsh tlodi | ||
Xhosa intlupheko | ||
Yiddish אָרעמקייט | ||
Yoruba osi | ||
Zulu ubumpofu |
Etymology & Notes
| Language | Etymology / Notes |
|---|---|
| Afrikaans | "Armoede" is derived from the Old French word "arm" meaning "pitiful, wretched," and was first used in Afrikaans in the 19th century. |
| Albanian | It is thought to be derived from the Indo-European root |
| Amharic | The Amharic word "ድህነት" (poverty) derives from the Semitic root "dhn," meaning "to be feeble" or "weak." |
| Arabic | "فقر" is also used in Arabic to refer to the deficiency of a bodily organ or the lack of a necessary thing. |
| Azerbaijani | The word "yoxsulluq" in Azerbaijani can also refer to a state of deprivation or destitution. |
| Basque | The word "pobrezia" also refers to the condition of being poor and the state of being destitute. |
| Belarusian | The word "галеча" in Belarusian originates from the Proto-Slavic word *golь, meaning naked or poor, and is cognate with the Russian word голь (gol), meaning the same. |
| Bengali | Derived from Sanskrit, 'daridra', meaning poor, destitute or deprived |
| Bosnian | The word “siromaštvo” is of Serbian origin and is related to the word “sirota”, which means “orphan”. |
| Bulgarian | The word "бедност" comes from the Old Church Slavonic word "бедный", meaning "poor" or "needy". |
| Catalan | 'Pobresa' comes from the Latin 'paupertas' (lack of resources), and the Catalan word 'pobre' (poor) derives from this. |
| Cebuano | The word "kakabus" in Cebuano can also refer to a state of being without friends or relatives. |
| Chinese (Simplified) | In Chinese, 贫穷 (pínqióng) literally means "empty storage" or "lack of wealth". |
| Chinese (Traditional) | 貧(poor) and 窮(exhaustion) in "貧窮" both have the radical 乏(lack) in their Chinese character structure. |
| Corsican | Corsican « puvertà » is derived from Italian « povertà » and can also mean "misery, hardship". |
| Croatian | The same word can also refer to a destitute person, and is thought to derive from 'sirotinja', meaning 'orphans'. |
| Czech | "Chudoba" is derived from an Old Czech word meaning "lacking," and is also used to refer to scarcity or hardship. |
| Danish | In Danish, the word "fattigdom" derives from "fattig," meaning "poor," and reflects the notion of a state of lacking resources or income. |
| Dutch | "Armoede" is derived from the Old French word "armoie," meaning "box" or "cupboard," and came to mean "poverty" in Dutch. |
| Esperanto | "Malriĉeco" derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *meǵʰ- "small, less", akin to English "meager" and "measure" |
| Estonian | The term 'vaesus' can also refer to 'misfortune' or 'lack of something', and is related to the Proto-Finnic word 'waiwas' which means "short, poor". |
| Finnish | The first part of "köyhyys", 'köyhä', referred initially only to someone who was unable to repay their debt or compensate for an offense. |
| French | "La pauvreté" derives from the Latin "paupertas" meaning "smallness," reflecting a view of poverty as a lack of material goods |
| Frisian | The Frisian word “earmoed” comes from the Proto-Germanic word meaning “sorrow.” |
| Galician | The Galician word "pobreza" is derived from the Latin "paupertas," meaning "poor" or "needy," and also shares a root with the Spanish word "pobre." |
| Georgian | "სიღარიბე" originates from the old Georgian verb "ღარიბად" which means "to become poor" and is related to the Kurdish word "xirab" which means "to be damaged," and/or to the Arabic "gharīb" meaning "foreigner, stranger." |
| German | In German, the word "Armut" comes from the Latin "armus" meaning "upper arm", indicating the vulnerability and weakness associated with poverty. |
| Greek | The word "φτώχεια" originally meant "lack of land" and implied a lack of political power. |
| Gujarati | The word "garibi" derives from the Sanskrit word "griha" meaning "house" and "bhi" meaning "fear". Thus, "garibi" literally means "fear of losing one's home". |
| Haitian Creole | Povrete derives from the French word "pauvreté" meaning "poor" and also "misery". Its alternate meaning of "lack" reflects a broader semantic range for resources beyond money, including health, happiness, and spirituality. |
| Hausa | The word 'talauci' in Hausa is derived from the word 'talauci' in Arabic, which means 'to perish'. It can also refer to a person who is poor or destitute. |
| Hawaiian | ʻilihune also means 'small, short, stunted, or dwarfed'. |
| Hebrew | The Hebrew word עוני originally referred to "humility" and "meekness" and developed a second meaning of "material want" through association with being humble before God. |
| Hindi | The word 'दरिद्रता' derives from the Sanskrit root 'drih', meaning 'to break' or 'to be broken'. |
| Hmong | The Hmong word "kev txom nyem" literally means "no money, but in this context, it refers to the broader concept of poverty. |
| Hungarian | The word "szegénység" derives from the word "szeg", meaning "corner", and refers to the marginalized and impoverished people living on the fringes of society. |
| Icelandic | The word 'fátækt' is also used to refer to people who are unable to work due to age or illness. |
| Igbo | Įda ọgbẹnyẹ in Igbo also denotes 'a state of being small, little or insignificant'. |
| Indonesian | The word "kemiskinan" in Indonesian is derived from the Proto-Austronesian word *kemiskin* which also means "dependence" or "lowliness". |
| Irish | The word "bochtaineacht" is derived from the Old Irish word "bocht", meaning "poor" or "wretched". |
| Italian | The Italian word "povertà" originates from the Latin word "paupertas," meaning "lack of means" or "neediness." |
| Japanese | The first character 貧 means thin and 困 means predicament or hardship. |
| Javanese | The word "mlarat" in Javanese, meaning "poverty," can also refer to a state of "exhaustion" or "helplessness." |
| Kannada | The word 'ಬಡತನ' (poverty) is derived from the Proto-Dravidian word 'paṯa', meaning 'destitute'. |
| Kazakh | The term may be related to the Persian word |
| Korean | The word "가난" (poverty) in Korean is cognate with the Japanese word "かんなん" (difficulty), suggesting a shared historical origin. |
| Kurdish | The Kurdish word "bêmalî" originally meant "lack of animal grazing land." |
| Kyrgyz | The word "жакырчылык" is derived from the word "жакыр" which means "poor" or "needy". It can also refer to a state of destitution or deprivation. |
| Latin | The word "paupertās" in Latin can also refer to a specific type of debt or obligation. |
| Latvian | "Nabadzība" is a word of Latvian origin, related to "nabads" meaning "poor" and "bads" meaning "hunger"} |
| Lithuanian | The word "skurdas" in Lithuanian originates from the Proto-Indo-European root "*skwer-", meaning "to cut" or "to scrape", conveying the idea of being cut off or destitute. |
| Luxembourgish | The Luxembourgish word "Aarmut" does not mean "pear", despite its similarity with the German word "Armut" meaning "pear". |
| Macedonian | In Macedonian, the word "сиромаштијата" can also mean "misery" or "lack of resources". |
| Malagasy | "FAHANTRANA" comes from the verb "FAHANA" (to be lacking) and the suffix "-TRANA" (state of being). |
| Malay | "Kemiskinan" in Malay traces back to the Sanskrit "komiskin-" meaning "emaciated", indicating the physical manifestations of poverty. |
| Malayalam | The Sanskrit word 'darid' meaning 'to split' also refers to the concept of 'poverty' because poverty splits and separates an individual from the rest of society socially and economically. |
| Maltese | The term 'faqar' can also mean 'need' or 'want' in religious contexts, derived from the Arabic verb 'faqara', meaning 'to be poor'. |
| Maori | "Rawakore" shares the same root as "rakau" (tree), which suggests a connection to the importance of natural resources in Maori culture. |
| Marathi | The word 'दारिद्र्य' in Marathi also means 'lack of wealth or prosperity'. |
| Mongolian | The word "ядуурал" ("poverty" in Mongolian) is also used to refer to "lack of merit." |
| Nepali | The word 'गरीबी' (garibi) is derived from the Sanskrit word 'गुरू' (guru), meaning heavy or weighty, connoting the burden of economic hardship. |
| Norwegian | The word 'fattigdom' is derived from the Old Norse word 'fattigr', meaning 'poor or needy' |
| Nyanja (Chichewa) | The word "umphawi" also means "lack of" in Nyanja. |
| Pashto | "غربت" in Pashto can also mean being a stranger or feeling homesick. |
| Persian | The Persian word 'فقر' can also refer to a lack of intellectual or spiritual wealth. |
| Polish | The Polish word 'ubóstwo' derives from the Proto-Slavic 'ǫboʒьstvъ', meaning 'scarcity', 'lack', or 'need'. |
| Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil) | The Portuguese word "pobreza" is derived from the Latin word "paupertas," meaning "want" or "lack." |
| Punjabi | The word "garibi" is derived from the Sanskrit word "garima," meaning "heaviness" or "weight." |
| Romanian | The Romanian word "sărăcie" is derived from the Latin word "sarculum" or "sarculo" referring to the hoe, an agricultural tool primarily utilized by the impoverished. |
| Russian | "Бедность" originated from "беда" (misfortune), and means "a state of great distress" |
| Samoan | 'mativa' can also refer to 'being without resources' and figuratively 'being without strength, energy, or vitality'. |
| Scots Gaelic | There is no certain etymology for the word, but it is likely to be derived from the word 'bochd' meaning 'poor' or 'wretched'. |
| Serbian | The Serbian word "сиромаштво" is derived from the Proto-Slavic word "siromъ", meaning "orphan" or "widow"} |
| Sesotho | The word "bofuma" derives from the Proto-Bantu word "*bu-fuma" meaning "to get lost, |
| Shona | The Shona word 'urombo' is also used to refer to destitution, neediness, and the state of being poor. |
| Sindhi | The alternate meaning of "غربت" in Sindhi is "to be in a foreign land". |
| Slovak | "Chudoba" comes from the Old Slavic word "chud", meaning "lean" or "thin". |
| Slovenian | The word “revščina” has the extended meaning of “misery” and the phrase “imeti revščino” means “to have misery”. |
| Somali | The word "saboolnimada" in Somali comes from the Arabic word "sabl", meaning "way" or "path". |
| Spanish | "Pobreza" means "poverty" in Spanish but shares the etymological root "-bor" with "labor","robor" and "absorber" and thus also has meanings of "work" or "laborious". |
| Sundanese | The term 'kamiskinan' originated in the Arabic term 'fakir' meaning 'poor' or 'needy'. |
| Swahili | In Swahili, the word "umaskini" derives from the root "maskini" meaning "poor" or "needy." |
| Swedish | The word "fattigdom" is derived from the Old Norse word "fatækr", which means "poor" or "needy". |
| Tagalog (Filipino) | The Tagalog word "kahirapan" is derived from the root word "hirap" meaning "difficulty" or "hardship". |
| Tajik | The word "камбизоатӣ" in Tajik is derived from the Arabic word "كمبوزات" (kambūzāt), meaning "poor people" or "beggars". |
| Tamil | The word "வறுமை" (poverty) in Tamil originally meant "dryness" or "barrenness". |
| Telugu | The word "పేదరికం" is derived from the Sanskrit word "पिता" (pita), meaning "father", and the suffix "-రికం" (-rikam), indicating "state or condition". It thus originally meant "the state of being a father" but has come to be used more generally to refer to "the state of being poor". |
| Thai | The Thai word "ความยากจน" (poverty) comes from the Sanskrit word "yajña" (sacrifice), suggesting a connection between poverty and the failure to perform religious rituals. |
| Turkish | The Turkish word "yoksulluk" is derived from the Arabic word "faqar", meaning hardship, lack or deprivation. |
| Ukrainian | The Ukrainian word "бідність" also implies a lack of social status or respect. |
| Urdu | The word 'غربت' (ghurbat) has its roots in the Arabic word 'غربة' (ghurba), which means 'solitude' or 'separation' and is also used to describe the state of being away from one's homeland. |
| Uzbek | The word "qashshoqlik" in Uzbek also refers to a state of being destitute or without resources. |
| Vietnamese | In Vietnamese, the word "nghèo nàn" is also used to express a lack of richness or complexity in thought, expression, or resources. |
| Welsh | The word 'tlodi' is derived from the Proto-Celtic word '*tlodos' meaning 'wretched' or 'poor'. |
| Xhosa | The word 'intlupheko' can also mean 'need' or 'lack of something'. |
| Yiddish | In Yiddish, "אָרעמקייט" shares a root with the word "אָרעם," meaning "arm" or "poor," highlighting the physical and emotional destitution associated with poverty. |
| Yoruba | Òsí is a Yoruba word that can mean |
| Zulu | The related concept 'ubumpofu', or extreme poverty, is not merely a state of material deprivation, but also implies social isolation and a loss of dignity. |
| English | The word "poverty" originally meant lack of money or property, but its meaning has expanded to include lack of basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter. |