How to Use poor in a Sentence

poor

adjective
  • We were too poor to buy new clothes.
  • It was a poor attempt at a joke.
  • She couldn't read the sign because her vision was too poor.
  • He is in poor condition.
  • She has a poor vocabulary.
  • The organization helps poor families.
  • The illness that your poor mum died from is called Hellp.
    Hazlitt, 8 Nov. 2023
  • All of this puts the U.S. well ahead of poorer nations.
    Tribune News Service, The Mercury News, 26 July 2024
  • No cause was given, but Mr. Lewis had been in poor health for some time.
    William Grimes, New York Times, 28 Oct. 2022
  • Porter grew up poor in the Outer Sunset, the youngest of seven kids.
    Ron Kroichick, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 Feb. 2023
  • Diana made her poor choice and that has made all the difference in the world to one of her sons.
    Los Angeles Times, 23 Jan. 2023
  • Rosenzweig said Torres is in his 50s and in poor health.
    Tracy Neal, Arkansas Online, 21 Feb. 2023
  • Down in Texas, over 5000 people tried last year to slip a few naughty words past the poor people at the DMV.
    Sebastian Blanco, Car and Driver, 16 Jan. 2023
  • Anything longer than that risks a poor fit, which can lead to water loss.
    Maya Polton, Better Homes & Gardens, 5 May 2023
  • My main gripe about the Bravia 7 was its notably poor performance from the side.
    Ryan Waniata, WIRED, 30 Nov. 2024
  • What are the signs my pet is feeling the effects of poor air quality?
    Katie Bowlby, Country Living, 8 June 2023
  • There's so many people who have touched me and who are helping those who are poor.
    Alex Ross, Peoplemag, 1 Feb. 2023
  • So give the vacuum a break while the air quality is poor.
    Cara Lynn Shultz, Peoplemag, 8 June 2023
  • So Arteta must rue the Gunners' poor run of form even more in the context of Cit's struggles.
    Zak Garner-Purkis, Forbes, 30 Nov. 2024
  • Lake Charles, the nearest city, is home to about eighty thousand people, close to half of whom are Black and many of whom are poor.
    Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, 22 Sep. 2023
  • Conversely, a poor showing could force one or the other to end their bid.
    Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times, 15 Jan. 2024
  • At first glance, topology would seem to be a poor fit for the problem of polling site placement.
    Lyndie Chiou, WIRED, 21 Apr. 2024
  • Not only in terms of dollars, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in choosing schools.
    Alan J. Borsuk, Journal Sentinel, 16 Dec. 2022
  • One poor finish in any of the first three rounds of the playoffs could doom a championship contender.
    Randy Covitz, Kansas City Star, 3 May 2024
  • Knack, whose career was in danger of stalling after a poor 2022, was briefly on their taxi squad prior to the break.
    Jack Harris, Los Angeles Times, 24 July 2023
  • My parents were too poor to buy houses that were proximate to where the good schools were.
    Fortune Editors, Fortune, 9 Nov. 2023
  • No jealousy of the poor people who have to spend hours and hours shooting fight scenes in the mud with that heavy armor and those heavy swords.
    Ryan Parker, Peoplemag, 19 Dec. 2022
  • Delon had been suffering from poor health in recent years and had a stroke in 2019.
    Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Aug. 2024
  • Larson grew up poor and was homeschooled as a kid, spending a lot of time in her room, making things up.
    Carina Chocano, Harper's BAZAAR, 23 Mar. 2023
  • Some of the animals seized in May have since died due to poor health caused by a lack of food and water when they were smuggled to Thailand.
    Chris Lau and Kocha Olarn, CNN, 30 Nov. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'poor.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: