Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Extreme want or poverty; destitution.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Lack; want; scantiness.
- noun Extreme poverty; want; indigence.
- noun Parsimoniousness; miserliness.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Absence of resources; want; privation; indigence; extreme poverty; destitution.
- noun obsolete Penuriousness; miserliness.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun extreme
want ;poverty ;destitution . - noun a lack of something; a
dearth ;barrenness ;insufficiency .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a state of extreme poverty or destitution
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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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.
Archive 2008-07-01 Not a sheep 2008
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Waylaid by want and penury is but a stranger wight!
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He died not in penury, but in debt, perhaps to the tune of $500,000.
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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.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206
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86Although Catherine and Mary were not exactly living in penury, their households reflected their demoted status.
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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.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Kobach on Arizona’s Immigration Law 2010
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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.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Kobach on Arizona’s Immigration Law 2010
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And our children's children, it's called penury at Hang On to Your Wallet!
Archive 2008-09-01 Michael Caddell 2008
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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! Michael Caddell 2008
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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?" Ann Althouse 2008
bilby commented on the word penury
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'.
August 11, 2008
sweetzingiber commented on the word penury
an oppressive lack of resources
August 1, 2009
kingparton commented on the word penury
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"
December 29, 2011
dailyword commented on the word penury
This word was also used in "The Name Of The Rose" book.
June 12, 2012