Search Result for "penury": 
Wordnet 3.0

NOUN (1)

1. a state of extreme poverty or destitution;
- Example: "their indigence appalled him"
- Example: "a general state of need exists among the homeless"
[syn: indigence, need, penury, pauperism, pauperization]


The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Penury \Pen"u*ry\, n. [L. penuria; cf. Gr. ? hunger, ? poverty, need, ? one who works for his daily bread, a poor man, ? to work for one's daily bread, to be poor: cf. F. p['e]nurie.] 1. Absence of resources; want; privation; indigence; extreme poverty; destitution. "A penury of military forces." --Bacon. [1913 Webster] They were exposed to hardship and penury. --Sprat. [1913 Webster] It arises in neither from penury of thought. --Landor. [1913 Webster] 2. Penuriousness; miserliness. [Obs.] --Jer. Taylor. [1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

penury n 1: a state of extreme poverty or destitution; "their indigence appalled him"; "a general state of need exists among the homeless" [syn: indigence, need, penury, pauperism, pauperization]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

27 Moby Thesaurus words for "penury": bare cupboard, bare subsistence, beggarliness, beggary, deprivation, destitution, empty purse, grinding poverty, gripe, hand-to-mouth existence, homelessness, impecuniousness, impoverishment, indigence, lack, mendicancy, moneylessness, necessitousness, necessity, need, neediness, pauperism, pauperization, pinch, poorness, privation, want