penury
noun
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The exact meaning of "penury" (from Latin penuria, meaning "want") can vary a bit from context to context. It sometimes has had a broad sense of "lack" or "scarcity," as when one character remarks on another's "penury of conversation" in Jane Austen's Emma. It can also mean "frugality," as in Edith Wharton's description of an excessively thrifty hostess in The Age of Innocence: "Her relatives considered that the penury of her table discredited the Mingott name, which had always been associated with good living." The most common sense of "penury," however, is simply "poverty," as in Shakespeare's As You Like It: "Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion have I spent that I should come to such penury?"
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Examples of penury in a Sentence
Indiewire Staff, IndieWire, 12 Aug. 2024
There’s a growing number of technocrats, business leaders and academics who see the current crisis in Gaza as the opportunity to confront the risk of Haredim pulling the country toward theocratic penury.
—Tribune News Service, Hartford Courant, 29 Mar. 2024
The role filled him with pride—his great fear wasn’t penury or dispossession but to be thought of as not useful.
—Anand Gopal, The New Yorker, 11 Mar. 2024
Cillian Murphy is not sitting at home in monkish penury.
—Vulture, 3 Feb. 2024
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Dictionary Entries Near penury
Cite this Entry
“Penury.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/penury. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
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penury
noun
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