penury
extreme poverty; destitution.
scarcity; dearth; inadequacy; insufficiency.
Origin of penury
1Other words for penury
Opposites for penury
Words Nearby penury
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use penury in a sentence
Or perhaps the plague of Strawberry Quick-flavored meth that was luring children into a life of addiction and penury.
Parents Panic Over Old Fake Smarties Snorting Craze | Lizzie Crocker | January 23, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTRelative obscurity and penury, her anthem claims, rule just as hard as the point-oh-oh-one percent realm of excess and access.
Duck! Reality TV Returns Us to the Dark Age of Tribal Warfare | James Poulos | December 21, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTLarry, it looks like traveling up the royal road you slashed through the forest of penury.
But to herself Jess Morse thought: And it would mean the difference, for mother and me, between penury and independence!
The Girls of Central High on the Stage | Gertrude W. MorrisonNotwithstanding her popularity and patronage, she died in France in great obscurity and penury.
The Every Day Book of History and Chronology | Joel Munsell
Hunger and penury had carved lines as easy to read in her face as the traces of asceticism and fear.
An Episode Under the Terror | Honore de BalzacHundreds of families were burned out, and reduced from opulence, or at least competency, to penury.
The Boys of '61 | Charles Carleton Coffin.The towns of the old world have alternations of penury and affluence.
American Sketches | Charles Whibley
British Dictionary definitions for penury
/ (ˈpɛnjʊrɪ) /
extreme poverty
extreme scarcity
Origin of penury
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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