penury

English

WOTD – 5 September 2025

Etymology

From Late Middle English penuri, penurie (“destitution, need, poverty; dearth, lack, scarcity”),[1] borrowed from Latin pēnūria (“need, scarcity, want”) + Middle English -i, -ie (suffix forming abstract and collective nouns);[2] further etymology uncertain, possibly related to paene (“almost, nearly; barely, hardly, scarcely”, adverb),[3] possibly from Proto-Indo-European *peh₁- (“to hate; to hurt”).

Pronunciation

Noun

penury (usually uncountable, plural penuries)

  1. (uncountable) Extreme need or want; destitution, poverty; (countable) an instance of this.
    • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, The Gospell off S. Luke xxj:[1–4], folio cxj, recto:
      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.
    • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 185, column 1:
      [W]hat prodigall portion haue I ſpent, that I ſhould come to ſuch penury?
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 14:23, signature [Iii4], verso, column 2:
      In all labour there is profit: but the talke of the lippes tendeth onely to penury.
    • 1625 January 4 (date delivered; Gregorian calendar), John Donne, “Sermon II. Preached in the Evening of Christmas-Day, 1624.”, in Henry Alford, editor, The Works of John Donne, D.D., […], volume I, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 25:
      [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 spelling has been modernized.
    • 1640, Thomas Fuller, “A Comment on 1 Cor. II. 20. 21.”, in Ioseph’s Partie-coloured Coat: Containing, a Comment on Part of the II. Chapter of the I. Epistle of S. Paul to the Corinthians. […], London: […] Iohn Dawson, for Iohn Williams, […], →OCLC, page 24:
      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.
    • 1750 June 12 (date written; published 1751), T[homas] Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, in Designs by Mr. R[ichard] Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray, London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], published 1753, →OCLC, page 31:
      Chill Penury repreſs'd their noble rage, / And froze the genial current of the ſoul.
    • 1905, Edith Wharton, chapter XIII, in The House of Mirth, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book II, page 514:
      Lily sat down beside the desk at the foot of her bed, and spreading out the cheque, read over and over the ten thousand dollars written across it in a steely business hand. Ten months earlier the amount it stood for had represented the depths of penury; but her standard of values had changed in the interval, and now visions of wealth lurked in every flourish of the pen.
    • 2009 April 18, Oliver Kamm, “The recession explained”, in The Times‎[1], London: News UK, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 5 September 2025:
      The hardship, penury and hunger of the early 1930s is etched in the collective memory of older Americans.
    • 2021 December 29, Howard Johnston, “Regional News: Eastern”, in Rail, number 947, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 20:
      Scrayingham: The churchyard nine miles north-east of York is the last resting place of 'Railway King' George Hudson, who died 150 years ago on December 14. He was responsible for the development of much of the UK's railway network but became financially overstretched. He was found guilty of fraud, was imprisoned, and spent his final years in penury.
  2. (countable, now chiefly poetic) Often followed by of: a lack of something; a dearth, a scarcity.
    Synonyms: barrenness, insufficiency
    • 1650, J[ohn] H[all], “The Grounds of Monarchy. The First Part.”, in The Grounds & Reasons of Monarchy Considered. […], [S.l.]: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 52:
      VVith theſe and many others as conſiderable, vvhich partly vvillingly, and partly in the penury of Books, forgettingly I paſſe, […]
    • 1839 January, February, April, Thomas De Quincey, “William Wordsworth”, in Autobiographic Sketches: With Recollections of the Lakes (De Quincey’s Works; II), London: James Hogg & Sons, →OCLC, pages 234–235:
      In early youth I laboured under a peculiar embarrassment and penury of words, which I sought to convey my thoughts adequately upon interesting subjects: […]
    • 1855, Robert Browning, “‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.’”, in Men and Women […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, stanza 11, page 139:
      No! penury, inertness and grimace, / In some strange sort, were the land's portion.
    • 2022, Ernesto Castro Córdoba, “Quentin Meillassoux”, in Markus Gabriel, Marion Gymnich, Tobias Keiling, Birgit Ulrike Münch, editors, Postcontinental Realism: Ontology and Epistemology for the Twenty-first Century (Reality and Hermeneutics: Bonn Studies in the New Humanities; 3), Tübingen, Baden-Württemburg: Mohr Siebeck, →DOI, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 93:
      Miseries are the quasi-animal penuries of human beings (hunger, disease, death, etc.); disquiets are the penuries specific to human beings (solitude, disappointment, frustration, etc.); and sufferings are a combination of miseries and disquiets.
  3. (uncountable, obsolete) The quality of being miserly; miserliness, parsimoniousness, stinginess.
    • 1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, “[XXVIII Sermons Preached at Golden Grove; Being for the Summer Half-year, […].] Sermon X. The Faith and Patience of the Saints: Or The Righteous Cause Oppressed. Part II.”, in ΕΝΙΑΥΤΟΣ [Eniautos]. A Course of Sermons for All the Sundays of the Year. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Richard Royston […], published 1654, →OCLC, page 130:
      God ſometimes puniſhes one ſinne vvith another; pride vvith adultery, drunkenneſſe vvith murder, careleſeneſſe vvith irreligion, idleneſſe vvith vanity, penury vvith oppreſſion, irreligion vvith blaſphemy, and that vvith Atheiſme, and therefore it is no vvonder if he puniſhes a ſinner by a ſinner.
    • 1685, John Dryden, Threnodia Augustalis: A Funeral-Pindarique Poem Sacred to the Happy Memory of King Charles II, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC, stanza XVIII, page 24:
      Let them not ſtill be obſtinately blind, / Still to divert the Good thou haſt deſign'd, / Or vvith Malignant penury, / To ſterve the Royal Vertues of his Mind.
    • 1748 (first performance), Samuel Foote, The Knights. A Comedy, […], London: […] P[aul] Vaillant, […], published 1754, →OCLC, Act I, page 4:
      Jenk[ins]. Prithee, novv you are in Spirits, give me a Portrait of Sir Penurious; […] I knovv no more of him than the common Country Converſation; that he is a thrifty, vvary Man. / Har[top]. The very Abſtract of Penury!

Derived terms

  • penured (obsolete)
  • penurous

Translations

References

  1. ^ “pē̆nū̆rī(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “-ī(e, suf.(4)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  3. ^ “penury, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2024; “penury, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Anagrams

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