Seems an appropriate word for today seeing as something like 30 million Americans are out of work.
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MyDictionary.com <noreply@mydictionary.com> Date: Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 7:16 AM
Subject: penury: MyDictionary.com Word of the Day
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My Word of the Day Wednesday April 07, 2010 |
penury [PEN-yuh-ree] |
| noun |
- Absence of resources; want; privation; indigence.
- Extreme poverty; destitution.
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The bill collector took a call from a customer claiming penury, a frugal lifestyle with barely tuppence to rub together, and therefore no chance of paying the bill. While on the call the electricity company staffer put the customer's address into Google Earth only to discover this downand-out lived in a fat pad with magnificent views of rolling countryside. Jonathan Russell, "Google Earth is rich source of information", The Daily Telegraph, Mar 23, 2010 -
Beken knows a thing or two about life's trials. Disabled as a child, he excelled in composing music. He enjoyed some success, particularly in the 1980s, when he traveled to play for Haitians abroad in New York, Montreal and Miami, before some bad decisions with his money pushed him into penury. Simon Romero, "A Haitian Singer and His Guitar Fight the Urge to Weep", New York Times, Mar 5, 2010 -
As the years passed, the daughter grew toward maturity in an experience of ever-increasing penu ry. Nevertheless, there was no actual want of the necessities of life, though always a woful lack of its elegancies. Marvin Dana Within the Law (1913) |
| Origin of the Word |
| Penury, approximately 1400, derives from Middle French penurie, from Latin penuria "want, need." |
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