Noun

Severity of manners or life; extreme rigor or strictness; harsh discipline.

Freedom from adornment; plainness; severe simplicity.

(economics) A policy of deficit-cutting, which by definition requires lower spending, higher taxes, or both.

* {{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=April 23 , author=Angelique Chrisafis , title=François Hollande on top but far right scores record result in French election , work=the Guardian citation , page= , passage=He said France clearly wanted to "close one page and open another". He reiterated his opposition to austerity alone as the only way out of Europe's crisis: "My final duty, and I know I'm being watched from beyond our borders, is to put Europe back on the path of growth and employment."}}

(obsolete) Sourness and harshness to the taste.

Noun

(en-noun)

The quality or state of being poor or indigent; want or scarcity of means of subsistence; indigence; need.

* {{quote-magazine, title=Towards the end of poverty

, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838, page=11, magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=America’s poverty' line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the '''poverty''' barrier. But '''poverty'''’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own ' poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.}}

Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or desired, or that constitute richness; as, poverty of soil; poverty of the blood; poverty of ideas.