Indigence, n.
Etymology: [L. indigentia: cf. F. indigence. See Indigent.]
The condition of being indigent; want of estate, or means of comfortable subsistence; penury; poverty; as, helpless, indigence. Cowper.
Syn. -- Poverty; penury; destitution; want; need; privation; lack. See Poverty.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for indigence; he lists it under poverty.
Where he writes about it:
Poverty denotes strictly lack of property or adequate means of support, but in common use is a relative term denoting any condition below that of easy, comfortable living; privation denotes a condition of painful lack of what is useful or desirable, tho not to the extent of absolute distress; indigence is lack of ordinary means of subsistence; destitution is lack of the comforts, and in part even of the necessaries of life; penury is especially cramping poverty, possibly not so sharp as destitution, but continuous, while that may be temporary; pauperism is such destitution as throws one upon organized public charity for support; beggary and mendicancy denote poverty that appeals for indiscriminate private charity. — from poverty
Antonyms
none given