Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To speak ill of.
- intransitive verb To claim poverty as an excuse or a defense.
- noun An exaggerated assertion of poverty.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
pretend to bepoor
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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The problem with variable support is that there are plenty of guys out there who will self-impoverish, reduce their income, etc., go to the judge and poormouth to get a minimal support payment, and then re-up their income on the side or under the table to regain their standard of living.
Court Strongly Rejects “Choice For Men” Civil Rights Lawsuit 2006
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The Detroit automakers always poormouth this sort of thing: they did it for seatbelts, for airbags, for bumper standards, for CAFE standards in previous decades … and then they manage to meet the standards anyway.
Firedoglake » Friday Amusements (And One Disturbing Bit) 2006
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The next time you hear naysayers poormouth college, ask them if they plan to send their own children.
NYT > Home Page By DAVID LEONHARDT 2011
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The next time you hear naysayers poormouth college, ask them if they plan to send their own children.
NYT > Home Page By DAVID LEONHARDT 2011
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Why have they not been responsible all this time and now cry poormouth, pity us.
SplicedFeed 2010
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Why have they not been responsible all this time and now cry poormouth, pity us.
SplicedFeed 2010
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Why have they not been responsible all this time and now cry poormouth, pity us.
SplicedFeed 2010
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Why have they not been responsible all this time and now cry poormouth, pity us.
SplicedFeed 2010
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That he did this while simultaneously pleading poormouth to the team's city and state and threatened to put the Colts on Route 66 to California betrayed a family resemblance that the locals took seriously.
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That he did this while simultaneously pleading poormouth to the team's city and state and threatened to put the Colts on Route 66 to California betrayed a family resemblance that the locals took seriously.
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