privation

privation
    n 1: a state of extreme poverty [syn: {privation}, {want},
         {deprivation}, {neediness}]
    2: act of depriving someone of food or money or rights;
       "nutritional privation"; "deprivation of civil rights" [syn:
       {privation}, {deprivation}]
    

Privation \Pri*va"tion\ (pr[-i]*v[=a]"sh[u^]n), n. [L. privatio:
   cf. F. privation. See {Private}.]
   1. The act of depriving, or taking away; hence, the depriving
      of rank or office; degradation in rank; deprivation.
      --Bacon.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. The state of being deprived or destitute of something,
      especially of something required or desired; destitution;
      need; as, to undergo severe privations.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. The condition of being absent; absence; negation.
      [1913 Webster]

            Evil will be known by consequence, as being only a
            privation, or absence, of good.       --South.
      [1913 Webster]

            Privation mere of light and absent day. --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]
    

75 Moby Thesaurus words for "privation":
      abridgment, bare cupboard, bare subsistence, beggarliness, beggary,
      bereavement, cost, curtailment, damage, dead loss, dearth, debit,
      default, defect, denial, denudation, deprivation, deprivement,
      despoilment, destitution, destruction, detriment, disburdening,
      disburdenment, disentitlement, dispossession, distress, divestment,
      empty purse, expense, forfeit, forfeiture, grinding poverty, gripe,
      hand-to-mouth existence, hardship, homelessness, impecuniousness,
      impoverishment, indigence, injury, lack, loser, losing,
      losing streak, loss, mendicancy, misery, mislaying, misplacement,
      misplacing, miss, moneylessness, necessitousness, necessity, need,
      neediness, pauperism, pauperization, penury, perdition, pinch,
      poorness, poverty, relieving, robbery, ruin, sacrifice, spoliation,
      straits, stripping, suffering, taking away, total loss, want