PENNILESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does penniless mean? 

• PENNILESS (adjective)
  The adjective PENNILESS has 1 sense:

1. not having enough money to pay for necessities

  Familiarity information: PENNILESS used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PENNILESS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not having enough money to pay for necessities

Synonyms:

hard up; impecunious; in straitened circumstances; penniless; penurious; pinched

Similar:

poor (having little money or few possessions)

Derivation:

pennilessness (a state of lacking money)

 Context examples 

Then he was but a penniless, monk-bred lad, unknown and unfriended.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I just rejoiced that good luck had come her way, and that she had not thrown herself away on a penniless sailor.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and penniless?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Such as the peasant enjoys when his family have been massacred before his eyes, his cottage burnt, his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless, penniless, and alone, but free.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

When he had told us so much he went on:—Frankly we did our best to prevent such a testamentary disposition, and pointed out certain contingencies that might leave her daughter either penniless or not so free as she should be to act regarding a matrimonial alliance.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

We have no foolish ideas about wealth, but comfort is another matter, and our daughter should at least marry a man who can give her that—and not a penniless adventurer, a sailor, a cowboy, a smuggler, and Heaven knows what else, who, in addition to everything, is hare-brained and irresponsible.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

What was he—a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness—that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You, penniless!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The day-coach—he was penniless now—was hot.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip from his shoulders.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)