penury
pronunciation
How to pronounce penury in British English:
UK [ˈpenjəri]
How to pronounce penury in American English:
US [ˈpenjəri]
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- Noun:
- a state of extreme poverty or destitution
Word Origin
- penury (n.)
- c. 1400, from Latin penuria "want, need; scarcity," related to paene "scarcely."
Antonym
Example
- 1. Few now experience the raw penury of rowntree 's day .
- 2. Ms duflo reckons that an absence of hope had helped keep these people in penury ; brac injected a dose of optimism .
- 3. The penury once even prompted a staff member to suggest operating a taxi company to generate revenue .
- 4. " Death is slow in private equity , and it 's not in penury , " says tim jenkinson , professor of finance at oxford 's sad business school .
- 5. And if mohammed was able to persist , in penury and peril , and keep his faith and that of his followers long enough to lay the foundations of a religion that lives on 1400 years later in one and a half billion souls , it was because he too had the virtues of a hero .