immiserate

English

Etymology

Back-formation from immiseration.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪˈmɪzəɹeɪt/

Verb

immiserate (third-person singular simple present immiserates, present participle immiserating, simple past and past participle immiserated)

1. (transitive) To impoverish (someone); to make someone sink into misery.
   • 1971 November 28, Robert L. Heilbroner, “Phase II of the Capitalist System”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     By far the most powerful dynamic conception of capitalism as a system wracked by unavoidable change is the classic Marxian view in which a working class is first immiserated, then disciplined, finally goaded beyond endurance by a system that systematically exploits and deceives it.

   • 2018 January 16, Greg Goldberg, Antisocial Media: Anxious Labor in the Digital Economy, NYU Press, →ISBN, page 51:

     The fun, pleasurable aspect of playbor troubles scholars because it seems to suggest that playborers are not exploited; exploitation is supposed to be immiserating, not fun.

   • 2020, Thomas Orlik, China: The Bubble that Never Pops, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 76:

     Higher inequality, in part the result of a real estate boom that immiserated some and enriched others, meant more wealth in the hands of the high-saving rich.

   • 2021, Michael Harris, Stay Alive: Surviving Capitalism’s Coming Hunger Games‎^[2], John Hunt Publishing, →ISBN:

     These regimes will favor older people and contain and immiserate the young.

Related terms

• commiserate
• commiseration
• immiseration

 

Translations

impoverish

• Czech: zbídačit
• German: no equivalent term in German, but see verarmen lassen
• Romanian: sărăci (ro)
• Spanish: miserabilizar

See also

• impoverish

Further reading

• “immiserate”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.