penury

Meanings

1. Extreme poverty; destitution.
2. A serious lack of something (now chiefly poetic).

Example sentences

• "The family lived in penury after the factory closed."

  Level C2, Meaning 1

• "He died in penury, though he had once been rich."

  Level C1, Meaning 1

• "The novel describes a young writer reduced to penury."

  Level C1, Meaning 1

• "The charity helps people escape penury."

  Level C1, Meaning 1

Synonyms and antonyms

Look-alikes and common mistakes

• poverty : Poverty is the general word. Penury means the most extreme poverty and sounds more formal.
• perjury : Perjury is lying under oath. It sounds a little like penury but is unrelated.
• luxury : Luxury is great comfort and wealth. It rhymes with penury and is close to its opposite.
• frugality : Frugality is careful spending by choice. Penury is poverty that is not chosen.

Word family and forms

Forms: penuries

Word partners

Words and phrases that often go with "penury".

• live in penury
• die in penury
• reduced to penury
• abject penury
• fall into penury
• escape penury
• a life of penury

Origin

Penury came into English in the 1400s from the Latin word penuria, meaning need or scarcity. Dictionary.com says it is related to Greek words for hunger and poverty, while Wiktionary says that the deeper origin is uncertain.

Checked against: Wiktionary, the free dictionary, Dictionary.com.

How to remember it

Say it as PEN-yoo-ree, and think of a pen with no ink and a pocket with no coins. Penury is having nothing left.

Test yourself

Learn next at C2

• pertinacious Holding firmly to an opinion or course of action, even when it's incon...
• phalanx A group of people or things arranged closely together, especially for...
• pittance A very small amount of money, especially as pay.
• potentate A ruler, especially one with great power.
• propitious Giving a good indication of future success; favorable.
• quibble To argue or complain about a small, unimportant detail.