How to Use destitution in a Sentence

destitution

noun
Definition of destitutionnext
Synonyms for destitutionnext
  • But the war had also left Poland, and much of Europe, in a state of famine and destitution.
    — Michael E. Ruane, Washington Post, 2 July 2017
  • Wood placed the blame for his mother’s destitution on the two men, the man at the legal aid group and the lawyer, for swindling her.
    — Andy Nguyen, La Cañada Valley Sun, 2 Nov. 2017
  • On the verge of exhaustion and destitution, Yang is at a loss about what to do.
    — Michael Holtz, The Christian Science Monitor, 21 Dec. 2017
  • But Maria swept away their ocean-side home, and banished them to a new level of destitution.
    — Caitlin Dickerson and Luis FerrÉ-SadurnÍ, New York Times, 24 Oct. 2017
  • Jeanne and Julien’s son, Paul, grows into a ne’er-do-well whose debts reduce Jeanne to destitution.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 18 May 2017
  • Here, the poor are represented by Leonard Bast, a young clerk who lives on the edge of destitution but longs deeply to be learned and artistic.
    — Constance Grady, Vox, 15 Apr. 2018
  • Some here now see a very fine line between destitution and bouncing back on their feet.
    — Dartunorro Clark, NBC News, 2 Sep. 2017
  • Many of those factories are in low-wage countries around Asia where workers may live on the brink of destitution.
    — Marc Bain, Quartz, 22 Oct. 2020
  • The country has addressed much of the abject destitution that vast numbers of Indians lived in 25 years ago.
    — The Christian Science Monitor, 5 Sep. 2019
  • Each resident has one to tell, of lives always teetering on the edge of destitution.
    — Leila Atassi, cleveland, 2 Oct. 2019
  • Ordinary folk in the novel scrape about to avoid destitution.
    — The Economist, 8 Mar. 2018
  • The upper classes, meanwhile, were shocked by the destitution.
    — Marlo Safi, National Review, 29 June 2019
  • No matter the utter destitution of their subjects, politicians and those close to politicians will always eat, and eat well.
    — John Tamny, Forbes, 13 Apr. 2022
  • Travelers are not coming out with new tales of destitution, and there is no surge of economic refugees.
    — John Delury, Washington Post, 18 Apr. 2018
  • Many people have heard about the violence, the lawlessness and the destitution that provoke these people to enter the United States.
    — New York Times, 7 Apr. 2021
  • Yeah, the goal being, let’s alleviate the worst forms of destitution in low-income countries.
    — Recode Staff, Recode, 16 July 2018
  • Like Alex the maid, Coco Chanel spent her youth struggling to survive utter destitution and miserable low-wage jobs.
    — New York Times, 10 Nov. 2021
  • Surely not in Ohio, where 40 percent of the population - the working poor - are one paycheck away from destitution.
    — John Benson, cleveland.com, 31 Oct. 2017
  • However, the last two years have clearly pushed a lot more people into harsh destitution.
    — David Meyer, Fortune, 20 Apr. 2022
  • The delineation of tasks that keeps one couple safe from destitution and filth would feel horribly rigid to another.
    — Heather Havrilesky, New York Times, 16 May 2017
  • The Lebanese people have been the subject of dire predictions of malnourished destitution.
    — Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor, 21 Sep. 2023
  • Zombek, a fluent Spanish speaker, grew up in Bridgeport, Conn., a diverse city with large pockets of destitution.
    — Lois K. Solomon, Sun-Sentinel.com, 12 Aug. 2017
  • The loss plunged Fatima, her five siblings, and her mother – now a single housewife – into grief and destitution.
    — Innocent Eteng, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 July 2022
  • Emancipation freed slaves only from bondage, not from destitution; the Clotilda survivors had no way of paying for their passage home.
    — Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2021
  • Even in Mulvaney's old district, there are pockets of extreme destitution.
    — Jonathan Allen, NBC News, 29 July 2019
  • Of safety, as destitution fuels a crime wave even as terrorist attacks — though reduced — continue to kill and maim.
    — Elvia Limón, Los Angeles Times, 30 Aug. 2022
  • Few are designed to help households manage the private misfortunes—such as illness or the death of a family member—that can tip them into destitution.
    — The Economist, 31 May 2018
  • The nocturnal worlds of voguing clubs and Studio 54 spilled out onto sidewalks littered with poverty and destitution.
    — Isobel Thompson, A-LIST, 31 Aug. 2017
  • Of course, there's no reason to be surprised that Trump, or people willing to work for him, would on a whim decide to destroy the lives of thousands of people and needlessly expose them to destitution and violence.
    — Luke Darby, GQ, 9 May 2018
  • The country did experience a period of democratization, but much of the public equated the new freedoms with destitution.
    — Boris Bondarev, Foreign Affairs, 17 Oct. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'destitution.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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