What does destitution mean?
Word: Destitution
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Destitution means the state of being so poor that a person has no money, food or home and cannot meet even basic needs.
Synonyms: penury, hardship, want
Antonyms: wealth, prosperity, affluence
Word origin: From Latin destitutio, from destituere, to abandon or leave alone.
How do you spell destitution?
Syllables: des - ti - tu - tion
Tricky part: Students often squeeze out a beat and write destition, or hear shun at the end and put sion.
Watch out for: destitusion, desitution, destituation
Memory tip: Start from the adjective destitute, drop its final e and add ion, the same way pollute becomes pollution.
Destitution in a sentence
Example 1: Without the pension, the retired tailor would have faced destitution.
Example 2: The charity runs a night shelter for people living in destitution in the city.
Example 3: A run of failed harvests left the old farmer close to destitution.
Fun Fact
In older English, destitute could simply mean forsaken or left alone. The sense of having no money or possessions came later.
Practise the CREST Way
Spell-o-Spell
Only one of these words is spelt correctly. Choose its meaning:
1. rehabilitasion 2. benevolance 3. calamaty 4. destitution
a) helping someone back to a normal life
b) a sudden event causing great damage
c) kindness and a wish to help others
d) extreme poverty with nothing to live on
Show answer
d) extreme poverty with nothing to live on. The other three each carry one wrong letter, in an ending or a middle vowel; destitution is the only clean spelling.
Word Cookie
Fill in the missing letters to complete the word:
d_s_itution
a) e, d
b) e, t
c) a, t
d) i, t
Show answer
b) e, t. The word opens with des, not dis, and a t follows the s straight away.
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the letters in the sentence to form a meaningful word:
Years of drought had pushed the villagers into nutsdieiott before help arrived.
a) distribution
b) destitution
c) institution
d) restitution
Show answer
b) destitution. Restitution needs an r and distribution needs a b and an r; only destitution uses exactly these eleven letters.
Word Connection
Choose the synonym of the word destitution as used in the sentence:
When the handloom mills closed, many weavers in the town were left in destitution.
a) poverty
b) leisure
c) safety
d) luxury
Show answer
a) poverty. The weavers lost their only income, which is poverty of the deepest kind; luxury sits at the far end of the scale.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Which of these would do most to lift a family out of destitution?
a) a holiday in a hill town
b) a bigger television set
c) a new set of board games
d) a steady job with a fair wage
Show answer
d) a steady job with a fair wage
2. Which person could be described as destitute?
a) a girl who owns a small sweet shop
b) a man who has lost his home and savings
c) a boy who has saved up for a bicycle
d) a woman who earns a good monthly salary
Show answer
b) a man who has lost his home and savings
