penury
2
9.7
- noun
- /ˈpɛn.jʊ.ri/
:
penuria
- Published accounts of their penury and suffering appeared in London in 1732 and 1733 and aroused great indignation.
- reduced to penury
- living in penury
- days of penury
Examples
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Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they paid rents to an absentee and foreign (British) landlord class in a system of notorious penury: improvements on holdings were met with higher rates.
Academic text (2001) -
After losing his job, he found himself living in penury and struggling to afford basic necessities.
-
Without science, we would live in a world of penury and disease.
Blog text (1) -
- You have brought yourself to penury entirely on your own.
-
In other words, wealthy people, in an effort to alleviate penury would create a saving bank.
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And those of us who are not yet elderly haven't been pushed into penury paying for this.
Blog text (28) -
Virginia transformed penury into prosperity and the ruins of war into the edifices of peace.
Academic text (2003) -
The immediate sense of penury and looming student-debt repayment is too near.
Academic text (2016) -
Penury enhanced by her own helplessness reinforced her innate anxiety.
Academic text (2006) -
I thought it seemed a rather vacant life, though I would gladly exchange my penury and my days of mindless labor for his affluence and his ability to do what he chose.
Fiction book (1996)
Synonyms
564
2.1
A situation when people lack basic things such as food or shelter
550
2.0
A situation of having very little money and few things
7
7.9
A situation when someone has no money, home, or way to live
1
2.5
A situation when someone has little money and few belongings
1
9.9
A very poor state where someone has almost no money, food, or shelter
1
9.9
A state of being very poor with almost nothing
1
6.8
A situation when someone has no money
A lack of money for basic needs like food and shelter
A state of having little or no money
A situation in which someone has very little money
A person who has little money and cannot buy basic things
Antonyms
How Poor
Surface Forms
Etymology
Penury comes from Latin penuria, which meant a 'shortage' or 'lack' of things like food or money, so people used it for hard times. So, penury today means extreme poverty — being almost without the basic things you need.