Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Extreme want or poverty; destitution.
- n. Extreme dearth; barrenness or insufficiency.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Lack; want; scantiness.
- n. Extreme poverty; want; indigence.
- n. Parsimoniousness; miserliness. Synonyms Indigence, Want, etc. See
poverty .
Wiktionary
- n. extreme want; poverty; destitution.
- n. a lack of something; a dearth; barrenness; insufficiency.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Absence of resources; want; privation; indigence; extreme poverty; destitution.
- n. Penuriousness; miserliness.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a state of extreme poverty or destitution
Etymologies
- Middle English penurie, from Latin pēnūria, want.
Examples
“That's Gordon "prudence" Brown one of whose first acts as Chancellor was to filch money from pension schemes leaving many people with private pensions looking forward to a retirement in penury, whilst he will retire on a nice fat publicly funded final salary scheme.”
“Waylaid by want and penury is but a stranger wight!”
“He died not in penury, but in debt, perhaps to the tune of $500,000.”
“They believed, with the wildest inconsistency, that this preternatural dominion of the air, of earth, and of hell, was exercised, from the vilest motives of malice or gain, by some wrinkled hags and itinerant sorcerers, who passed their obscure lives in penury and contempt.”
“86Although Catherine and Mary were not exactly living in penury, their households reflected their demoted status.”
“The Left has been doing this for years, both as a hammer with which to beat recalcitrant government agencies, and a sop to the trial lawyers without whose contributions the Democratic Party would find itself in penury.”
“And our children's children, it's called penury at Hang On to Your Wallet!”
Hang On to Your Wallet! The Government is About to Rescue Investors | This Can't Be Happening!
“We'll be told that our penury is a necessary sacrifice to save the planet.”
"This Supreme Court is quite clearly the enemy of progressivism.... What is to be done?"
“I was young, and used to what might be called penury, and I well knew that I must seek my fortune in the world, and work hard.”
“Her father had a small place at court, lived beyond his fortune, educated his daughter, to whom he could give no portion, as if she were to be heiress to a large estate; then died, and left his widow absolutely in penury.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘penury’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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eg's list
lexicolony
nefandous, ineffable, ultracrepidate, haecceity, quiddity, noumenon, hypokeimenon, extemporaneous, theomastix, caducity, niddering, tellurian and 16 more...
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bestiary
agave, incunable, echt, wissenschaft, friscalating, obsolescence, clavier, yajna, ecstatic, casual, protean, hum and 41 more...
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ilustreous-default
kingparton The fear of penury is very curious, in our age. In really poor ages men did not fear penury. They didn't care.
David Herbert Lawrence, "Education of the People" Dec 29, 2011
sweetzingiber an oppressive lack of resources Jul 31, 2009
bilby
Man's feeble race what ills await!
Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,
Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,
And Death, sad refuge from the storms of fate!
The fond complaint, my song, disprove,
And justify the laws of Jove.
Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse?
- T. Gray, 'The Progress of Poesy'. Aug 11, 2008