Words / P / General

penury

noun/ˈpɛnjʊri/

C1CEFR level
68/100Rarity: rare
FormalRegister

Extreme poverty; destitution.

A run of bad luck reduced the family to penury.

Similar: destitution, want, privation

Origin: Latin penuria 'want'.

Topic: Money & fortune in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More general words: Money & fortune