How to Use destitution in a Sentence

destitution

noun
  • Some here now see a very fine line between destitution and bouncing back on their feet.
    — Dartunorro Clark, NBC News, 2 Sep. 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
  • 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
  • Ordinary folk in the novel scrape about to avoid destitution.
    — The Economist, 8 Mar. 2018
  • 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
  • The Strip had been reduced to a landscape of destitution and ruin.
    — David Remnick, New Yorker, 19 Oct. 2025
  • In the trailer, the young women are in despair over their sudden destitution.
    — Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 25 June 2026
  • 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
  • Each resident has one to tell, of lives always teetering on the edge of destitution.
    — Leila Atassi, cleveland, 2 Oct. 2019
  • However, the last two years have clearly pushed a lot more people into harsh destitution.
    — David Meyer, Fortune, 20 Apr. 2022
  • There once was a country whose citizens were in total destitution.
    — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 14 June 2024
  • 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 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
  • Beth has only one season to land a husband who will ensure that her family can avoid certain destitution.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 13 Dec. 2024
  • 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
  • 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
  • All that remains of the American Dream is the thin line between wealth and destitution.
    — Andy Andersen, Vulture, 18 Sep. 2025
  • Even in Mulvaney's old district, there are pockets of extreme destitution.
    — Jonathan Allen, NBC News, 29 July 2019
  • 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
  • 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
  • This is to say, you can be born poor, working class or middle class, and get rich making music, maybe even music about your destitution or material lack.
    — Harmony Holiday, Los Angeles Times, 1 Dec. 2023
  • Robb points out that most scholars did not have lifelong economic stability and so were at risk of destitution if disease or old age forced them to stop working.
    — Margherita Bassi, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 Dec. 2023
  • 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
  • The Lebanese people have been the subject of dire predictions of malnourished destitution.
    — Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor, 21 Sep. 2023
  • 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
  • Emancipation freed slaves only from bondage, not from destitution; the Clotilda survivors had no way of paying for their passage home.
    — Casey N. Cep, The New Yorker, 7 May 2018
  • 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

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.

Last Updated: