English term
impoverished
I have a doubt about the meaning of "impoverished" in the sentence at the very end of the passage below, taken from a self-help book on regret. To be honest, I find it difficult to understand the comparison...
Does "impoverished" simply mean "being extremely poor" or does it mean "having become very poor because of a lost bet"?
Thank you very much for your help!
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Do you think you have few resources of your own, that you have few positive sources of pleasure and meaning in your life, and that you will lack the ability to make better things happen? If so, you may not be very willing to take chances on challenging tasks because you believe that you lack the ability to recover from losses and you do not see yourself as having a wide range of alternative sources of reward in your life. Without this sense of effectiveness and competence, you will view a negative outcome as depleting or devastating because you see yourself as having little to fall back on. So, regret will be something that you might dwell on since you do not see yourself as capable of overcoming losses. It's like an *** impoverished ***person losing a bet and finding that he has no money left.
| 4 +2 | a person with not much money |
Helena Chavarria
|
| 5 +1 | extremely poor |
Maciej Bogucki
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| 4 +2 | poor |
Thomas T. Frost
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| 5 -1 | Extremely poor |
Gulfly
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| 4 -1 | made poor |
Kiet Bach
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Aug 17, 2022 21:02: Helena Chavarria changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"
Non-PRO (3): philgoddard, AllegroTrans, Helena Chavarria
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Responses
Spain
Striving for excellence
Native in: English (Variant: British) 
Works in: Spanish to English, Catalan to English
a person with not much money
| Thank you, Helena, for your contribution! |
| agree |
AllegroTrans
2 hrs
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Thank you, Allegro :-)
|
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| agree |
Yvonne Gallagher
: You were first with right idea...and find themselves with even fewer resources than before
19 hrs
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Thank you, Yvonne :-)
|
Poland
Mining expertise straight out of Silesia
Native in: Polish (Variants: Standard-Poland, Silesian (śląski))
Works in: English to Polish, Polish to English, Polish, and 1 more.
extremely poor
1. You are extremely poor.
2. You take a risk to try to lift yourself up by betting the little money you have.
3. The risk backfires and you lose that money.
4. Now you're left with nothing, and this stings even more than it would otherwise.
| thank you so much, Maciej, for your contribution! |
| agree |
philgoddard
1 hr
|
| neutral |
AllegroTrans
: Everything (including being poor) is a matter of degree but I think "extremely" is unwarranted here
2 hrs
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Fair enough, though I used that primarily to pick from the asker's two options in the OP ("being extremely poor" or "having become very poor").
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| neutral |
Yvonne Gallagher
: Impoverished just means "poor"
1 day 36 mins
|
Portugal
‘Very good precision work’ – Comunica.dk
Native in: Danish (Variant: Standard (rigsdansk)) 
, English (Variants: British, UK)
Works in: Danish to English, English to Danish, French to Danish
poor
| Thank you so much, Thomas, for your help! So, maybe I could slightly rephrase the sentence as follows: it would be as if a poor person made a bet, lost it and found herself even poorer |
| Dear Thomas, I would have liked to give points to you, too, for being so kind as to help me understand the metaphor... but it's not possible... Many many thanks! |
made poor
To reduce to poverty; make poor.
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/impoverish
It's like an impoverished person losing a bet and finding that he has no money left.
=
It's like a person made poor by losing a bet and finding that he has no money left.
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Note added at 23 hrs (2022-08-18 17:39:00 GMT)
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The author used "impoverished", and not "poor" for a reason.
The person had not been poor, but made poor after losing the bet. Hence the regret.
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Note added at 23 hrs (2022-08-18 17:46:07 GMT)
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Your second interpretation is right: "having become very poor because of a lost bet"
| disagree |
AllegroTrans
: In asker's text the person is "poor" before losing the bet; and your two sentences do not have the same meaning
12 hrs
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How do you know the person is poor before losing the bet?
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|
| disagree |
Yvonne Gallagher
: Not the meaning here
15 hrs
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| agree |
Gulfly
2 days 14 hrs
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Thank you!
|
Extremely poor
| disagree |
AllegroTrans
: Aside from being wrong this has already been suggested by someone else so you shouldn't be reposting but using the "agree" button if you want to concur
6 hrs
|
Discussion
Thank you very much for your valuable help!
Yes, almost, except that 'even poorer' is not the same as 'no money left'. I think it's important to distinguish, as the person in the psychological situation would fear simply having no mental resources left at all, not simply having less.