PENURY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does penury mean? 

• PENURY (noun)
  The noun PENURY has 1 sense:

1. a state of extreme poverty or destitution

  Familiarity information: PENURY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PENURY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of extreme poverty or destitution

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

indigence; need; pauperism; pauperization; penury

Context example:

a general state of need exists among the homeless

Hypernyms ("penury" is a kind of...):

impoverishment; poorness; poverty (the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "penury"):

beggary; mendicancy; mendicity (the state of being a beggar or mendicant)

Derivation:

penurious (not having enough money to pay for necessities)

 Context examples 

It contained but two rooms, and these exhibited all the squalidness of the most miserable penury.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

And now to chuse the mortification of Mrs. Elton's notice and the penury of her conversation, rather than return to the superior companions who have always loved her with such real, generous affection.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

His mother explained to him her liberal designs, in case of his marrying Miss Morton; told him she would settle on him the Norfolk estate, which, clear of land-tax, brings in a good thousand a-year; offered even, when matters grew desperate, to make it twelve hundred; and in opposition to this, if he still persisted in this low connection, represented to him the certain penury that must attend the match.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)