Penury \Pen"u*ry\, n. [L. penuria; cf. Gr. ? hunger, ? poverty,
need, ? one who works for his daily bread, a poor man, ? to
work for one's daily bread, to be poor: cf. F. p['e]nurie.]
1. Absence of resources; want; privation; indigence; extreme
poverty; destitution. "A penury of military forces."
--Bacon.
[1913 Webster]
They were exposed to hardship and penury. --Sprat.
[1913 Webster]
It arises in neither from penury of thought.
--Landor.
[1913 Webster]
2. Penuriousness; miserliness. [Obs.] --Jer. Taylor.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
penury
n : a state of extreme poverty or destitution; "their indigence
appalled him"; "a general state of need exists among the
homeless" [syn: indigence, need, beggary, pauperism,
pauperization]
WordNet (r) 2.0
27 Moby Thesaurus words for "penury":
bare cupboard, bare subsistence, beggarliness, beggary,
deprivation, destitution, empty purse, grinding poverty, gripe,
hand-to-mouth existence, homelessness, impecuniousness,
impoverishment, indigence, lack, mendicancy, moneylessness,
necessitousness, necessity, need, neediness, pauperism,
pauperization, pinch, poorness, privation, want
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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