poor [ME] The Latin word for ‘poor’ pauper, is the base of pauper [E16th], poverty [ME], and poor. The phrase poor as a church mouse, or ‘extremely poor’, comes from the notion that a church mouse must be particularly deprived as it does not have the opportunity to find pickings from a kitchen or larder. You sometimes hear a wealthy young person whose money appears to bring them no happiness described as poor little rich girl (or boy). Though he did not coin the phrase, Noël Coward certainly popularized it with his 1925 song ‘Poor Little Rich Girl’.