penury
/ˈpɛnjəɹi/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.09 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "As he [Jesus] behelde⸝ he ſawe the ryche men⸝ howe they caſt in their offeringꝭ [offeringis] into the treſury. He ſawe alſo a certayne povre widdowe⸝ which caſt ĩ [in] thydre two mytes. And he ſaid: of a trueth I ſaye vnto you⸝ this povre widdowe hath putt in moare thẽ [then, i.e., than] they all. For they all have of their ſuperfluyte added vnto the offeringe off God: But ſhe⸝ of her penury⸝ hath caſt in all the ſubſtaunce that ſhe hadde."
- "[W]hat prodigall portion haue I ſpent, that I ſhould come to ſuch penury?"
- "In all labour there is profit: but the talke of the lippes tendeth onely to penury."
- "[N]ow God comes to thee, […] as the sun in noon, to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons."
- "The poore people in Corinth did ſee, and ſmell, vvhat the rich men taſted, Tantalizing all the vvhile, and having their penury doubled by the Antiperiſtaſis of others plenty; yea, ryot and exceſſe, for ſome of them vvere drunken."
- "Chill Penury repreſs'd their noble rage, / And froze the genial current of the ſoul."
Etymology
From Late Middle English penuri, penurie (“destitution, need, poverty; dearth, lack, scarcity”), borrowed from Latin pēnūria (“need, scarcity, want”) + Middle English -i, -ie (suffix forming abstract and collective nouns); further etymology uncertain, possibly related to paene (“almost, nearly; barely, hardly, scarcely”, adverb), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *peh₁- (“to hate; to hurt”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈpɛnjəɹi/
- British English: /ˈpɛnjʊɹi/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
penured
penurous