Adjective

(en-adj)

Oppressing with fear or horror; appalling, terrible.

Inspiring awe; filling with profound reverence or respect; profoundly impressive.

*, I.56:

God ought not to be commixed in our actions, but with awful reverence, and an attention full of honour and respect.

* 1819 , Lord Byron, Don Juan , II.143:

And then she stopped, and stood as if in awe / (For sleep is awful ).

Struck or filled with awe.

(obsolete) Terror-stricken.

Worshipful; reverential; law-abiding.

Exceedingly great; usually applied intensively.

an awful bonnet

I have learnt an awful amount today.

Very bad.

My socks smell awful .

Adjective

(er)

With little or no possessions or money.

:

Of low quality.

:

*, chapter=10

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.}}

To be pitied.

:

*

*:Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.

*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=15 citation , passage=Mr. Campion sighed. ‘Poor man,’ he said. ‘He sees his great sacrifices rejected by the gods, and so, no doubt, all the Misses Eumenides let loose again to plague him.’}}

Deficient in a specified way.

:

Inadequate, insufficient.

:

*(w) (1600-1666)

*:That I have wronged no man will be a poor plea or apology at the last day.

Free from self-assertion; not proud or arrogant; meek.

*(Bible), (w) v.3

*:Blessed are the poor in spirit.