paupers
Those without means
Paupers is the plural of pauper, a person who is extremely poor.
The word often implies dependence on charity or public assistance: The workhouse was full of paupers.
It carries an old-fashioned, almost Dickensian flavor, though it still appears in legal contexts like pauper's oath for those claiming inability to pay court costs.
Those soliciting charity
- vagrantsHomeless itinerant people
- homelessWithout a dwelling
- mendicantsThose who live by begging
- down-and-outLacking all resources
dispossessed · outcasts · shelterless · forsaken · abandoned · wretched · forlorn · marginalized
Extremely poor, lacking necessities
- destituteUtterly without means
- penuriousExcessively frugal or poor
- impecuniousHabitually without money
- beggarlyMeanly poor, contemptible
penniless · moneyless · hand-to-mouth · subsistence · meager · scanty · threadbare · squalid
Gifts to the destitute
- charityVoluntary aid for others
- welfareComfort and prosperity
- aidSupport given freely
- handoutFree distribution to recipients
shelter · relief · dole · poorbox · beneficiary · almsgiving · tithe · workhouse
Unable to pay debts
- bankruptUnable to repay debts
- debt-riddenBurdened by borrowings
- debtorOne who owes
- wardProtected person; division
beggars
Those soliciting charity
- vagrantsHomeless itinerant people
- homelessWithout a dwelling
- mendicantsThose who live by begging
down-and-out · dispossessed · outcasts · shelterless · forsaken · abandoned · wretched · forlorn · marginalized · underclass
indigent
Extremely poor, lacking necessities
- destituteUtterly without means
- penuriousExcessively frugal or poor
- impecuniousHabitually without money
beggarly · penniless · moneyless · hand-to-mouth · subsistence · meager · scanty · threadbare · squalid · hardship
alms
Gifts to the destitute
handout · shelter · relief · dole · poorbox · beneficiary · almsgiving · tithe · workhouse
insolvent
Unable to pay debts
- bankruptUnable to repay debts
- debt-riddenBurdened by borrowings
- debtorOne who owes
- massmass, masses, bulk, body mass, atomic mass
- Poor Lawworkhouse, workhouses, poorhouse, poorhouses, parish relief
- povertypoverty line, poor, poverty rate, generational poverty, poverty trap
- outcastsoutcast, pariah, pariahs, outcasts, outlaws
- social classupper class, middle class, lower class, working class, social class
- social classesupper class, middle class, lower class, working class, nobles
paupersmillionaires
People worth seven figures
billionaires · tycoons · plutocrats · magnates · the rich
paupersaristocrats
Hereditary ruling class
nobles · nobility · royalty · the elite · patricians
- pauper's funeralBurial for the destitute
- paupers' funeralsBurials paid by charity