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.

Noun

(wikipedia shortage) (en noun)

A lack or deficiency; an insufficient amount.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Yesterday’s fuel , passage=The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania.