Penurious
(pronounced puh-noor-ee-us or puh-nyoor-ee-us; “oo” pronounced as in “book” and not as in “boot”) adjective
Definition
1. extremely stingy; mean; miserly; unwilling to part with any material possession; exhibiting so much parsimony as to give an appearance of actual poverty or indigence. 2. poverty stricken; extremely poor; destitute. 3. devoid of yield; barren; impoverished.
Other Forms
Penury (pronounced pen-yuh-ree) noun
Main Example
- With Christmas season around the corner, ’tis also the season of many a performance of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” featuring the curmudgeonly and penurious Scrooge, who, when visited by ghosts from his past, present, and future who show him the error of his ways, is completely transformed into a kind-hearted soul.
Workplace Examples
- The recession has devastated our company’s main business, and we’ve been brought to near penury. For instance, to cut the utility bill this past summer, the thermostat was set five degrees higher than usual, and we are required to switch off the lights and computers in our offices if we’ll be gone for over 2 hours. Even the office coffee pot and microwave have been eliminated.
- I’m afraid our club has absolutely no money to pay you. In fact, we are in such a penurious state, we ask that guest speakers bring their own water.
Other Examples
- speaking out against America’s “broken healthcare system,” a U.S. senator saying: “There is hardly a day when I don’t receive a letter from one of my constituents pointing out how their family’s medical problems have bankrupted them and reduced them to a life of penury.”
- a Chinese government Web site claiming that thanks to the modern agricultural techniques that are now being used in Tibet, a rich harvest of wheat and other crops is being produced regularly from previously infertile and penurious land
- prior to the publication of her first “Harry Potter” novel, author J.K. Rowling, who is now a billionaire, leading the life of a penurious single mother
- during the final years of his life, former President Ulysses S. Grant having to endure great penury because of bad investments
