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deprive

/dɪˈpraɪv//dɪˈpraɪv/·verb
to keep someone or something from having what they need
Fig. 1 — A candle burns steady and content.
01Definition

To deprive is to take away or withhold something needed — to keep a person, place, or process from what it cannot do without. From Latin deprivare, it is stronger and more deliberate than simply lacking: someone or something does the depriving. Deprive a plant of light and it goes dormant; deprive a region of water and the land begins to fail. It takes the pattern 'deprive X of Y', and the thing held back is almost always essential, which is what gives the word its edge of harm or injustice.

02In use
  • iShut the blinds for a week and you deprive the seedlings of light until they go dormant.
  • iiHeavy censorship deprives citizens of the information they need to choose well.
  • iiiDrought deprived the valley of water and slowly began to deplete the soil of life.
03Collocations
  • deprive of
  • sleep-deprived
  • deprive someone of
  • deprived areas

Family deprivation (noun) · deprived (adjective)

04Relations

=dispossess, strip, deny, divest, rob

≠provide, supply, endow

06TOEFL & IELTS

Essential for IELTS on social issues ('deprived neighbourhoods', 'sleep deprivation') and TOEFL on biology and rights. Lock in the structure deprive somebody/something OF something — the 'of' is not optional. The noun deprivation is heavily tested. Separate it from deplete (to use a reserve up) and withhold (to refuse to release): to deprive is to keep a needy thing from what it requires.

07Asked
Is it 'deprive of' or 'deprive from'?
Of, always: you deprive someone OF something ('deprived of sleep', 'deprived of rights'). 'Deprive from' is an error. The of is fixed because the word names a single package — a person and the essential thing taken from them — and no other preposition splits that pair. The passive keeps it too: 'deprived of'.
What is the difference between deprive and deny?
Deny is about a request refused at the moment of asking — deny access, deny a claim. Deprive is about an ongoing lack of something essential, and it stresses the harm of going without: you can be deprived of sleep for weeks. Deny is the closed door; deprive is the long consequence of it staying closed.
What is the difference between deprived and depraved?
One letter, opposite kinds of trouble. Deprived means denied life's necessities — a deprived childhood lacked food, warmth, or care. Depraved means morally corrupt — a depraved act is wicked. A famous line in West Side Story puns on exactly this pair — 'I'm depraved on account I'm deprived'. Keep them apart: one is a victim's word, the other an accusation.
What is sleep deprivation?
The condition of not getting enough sleep, and the noun deprivation is where deprive does much of its clinical work — sensory deprivation, oxygen deprivation, nutrient deprivation. The pattern is always the same: something essential withheld until function fails. The scene above is deprivation in miniature — a candle sealed under glass, starved of air, shrinking out.
What does 'deprived area' mean?
A neighbourhood lacking the resources most people rely on — decent housing, jobs, services, schools. It is the standard term in British social policy ('one of the most deprived areas in the country'), a measured, formal way to name poverty by what a place is short of rather than by blame. IELTS essays on inequality lean on it heavily.
Is deprive a formal word?
Formal-leaning and weighted with harm — you rarely hear it about trivial things ('deprived of my coffee' is a deliberate joke). Its natural home is rights, needs and hardship: deprived of liberty, of sleep, of a fair hearing. That gravity is exactly why exam essays reward it over plain 'didn't have'.