Genteel poverty is a state of poverty marked by one's connection or affectation towards a higher ("genteel") social class. Those in genteel poverty are often people, possibly titled, who have fallen from wealth out of various circumstances. The term can extend down to the lower-middle class.

Spinsters from wealthy families were likely to fall into genteel poverty during those points in history when women were barred from earning a living wage through work. Aristocratic families with a lack of male heirs risk falling into genteel poverty when the family money passes out of the household to the oldest male relative. Those described as the genteel poor who do come from the aristocratic class may still retain one or more servants, and live off rental income or income from a country estate, although this money may not sufficiently cover daily expenses or the luxuries typical to those from a lineage of landed gentry. The genteel poor may also describe those on fixed income such as pensioners. Genteel poverty is often associated with vicars, who tend to come from privileged, highly-educated backgrounds, but earn an amount determined by their local parish.

Working-class people who have a higher level of education or training such as teachers or skilled artisans may be considered members of the genteel poor.

The term genteel poverty peaked in usage in the late 19th century.

Characters in genteel poverty are often seen in English literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The genteel poor as seen in these works are typically not working class. Notable books containing characters which are members of the genteel poor include I Capture the Castle, Little Lord Fauntleroy, and many of the works of Jane Austen; Austen herself faced genteel poverty due to the death of her father. For example, in Emma, Miss Bates and Mrs. Bates have fallen into genteel poverty because of the death of Mr. Bates, who was Highbury's clergyman. In Sense and Sensibility, the main characters, the Dashwoods, fall into genteel poverty as their family inheritance passes to the family patriarch's son by his first wife.

The term can also describe people from working-class backgrounds who pretend towards a higher class through their interests and affectations, such as Leonard Bast of the 1910 novel Howards End: a lower-middle class insurance clerk who reads and attends lectures in the pursuit of self-improvement. Forster thus ironically alludes to the English fixation on the genteel poor:

We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are gentlefolk.

Brontë’s Jane Eyre may be considered a unique example of genteel poverty. As an orphan with no wealth or family to support her, Jane has very limited material means. However, she is not seen as “working class” because she was raised and educated as a gentlewoman. Her job as a governess (a position often filled by women of Jane’s background) highlights this status. Governesses were expected to have the manners, speech, and values of the upper classes, but because they earned a living, they didn’t fully belong to that world. This placed them in an awkward social position as too refined to be servants, but too poor and dependent to be equals of the families they served.