The DICT Development Group

  Poorness \Poor"ness\, n.
     The quality or state of being poor (in any of the senses of
     the adjective). --Bacon.
     [1913 Webster]

  poorness
      n 1: the state of having little or no money and few or no
           material possessions [syn: poverty, poorness,
           impoverishment] [ant: wealth, wealthiness]
      2: less than adequate; "the relative poorness of New England
         farmland"
      3: the quality of being meager; "an exiguity of cloth that would
         only allow of miniature capes"-George Eliot [syn:
         meagerness, meagreness, leanness, poorness,
         scantiness, scantness, exiguity]
      4: the quality of being poorly made or maintained; "she was
         unrecognizable because of the poorness of the photography"