The article is an attempt at answering the question which linguistic means in contemporary Polish language convey the meaning ‘material deprivation’ or ‘to find oneself in material hardship’. The resource base of the article includes lexemes and phraseologisms excerpted from dictionaries of general Polish language, dictionaries of synonyms and antonyms, as well as phraseological dictionaries. Lexical linguistic means which refer to material hardship comprise above all: the noun poverty (bieda) and its synonyms, e.g. golizna, nędza, niedostatek, ubóstwo (material deprivation, hardship, impoverishment, pennilessness), verbs which illustrate the situation of material deprivation as a longlasting state (e.g. biedować, wegetować – to live in poverty) or the ones which denote the process of reaching this state (e.g. biednieć – to become poor, bankrutować - to go bankrupt). Phraseological resources which refer to material hardship are created by: - word combinations with the noun ‘poverty’ (bieda), less frequently ‘abject poverty’ (nędza), e.g. bieda aż piszczy – ‘severe poverty’ (literally: poverty is squealing) - word combinations with adjectives biedny ‘poor’ (biedny jak mysz kościelna – as poor as a church mouse ‘very poor’), goły ‘broke’ (goły, ale wesoły broke but happy) and chudy ‘lean’ (chude lata lean times). - word combinations which do not contain a component unambiguously associated with poverty, but rather metaphorically demonstrate reality connected with material hardship: lack of food (nie mieć co do garnka włożyć – literally: not to have anything to put in the pot), shortage of clothes (zostać w jednej koszuli – to have one shirt left) or poor condition of clothing (świecić gołymi piętami – to have bare feet), lack of money (nie mieć grosza przy duszy – not to have a penny), homelessness (nie mieć dachu nad głową – not to have a roof above one’s head), poor hygiene (brud, smród and ubóstwo – dirt, stink abject poverty), diseases (pędzić żywot suchotniczy – to lead a tuberculotic life), as well as the necessity to limit one’s own needs (gonić resztkami – to live off leftovers). A difficult material situation can also be expressed by means of phraseologisms which in their imagery do not contain references to symptoms of material deprivation connected with other fields of life, e.g. craft: ledwie/ z trudem wiązać koniec z końcem (hardly make ends meet), cienko prząść (to feel the pinch), cienko śpiewać (to live from hand to mouth). The repertoire of means expressing poverty in contemporary Polish language does not change, but rather becomes narrowed down, at least in the language of the younger generation.