From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Penury \Pen"u*ry\, noun [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.
They were exposed to hardship and penury. --Sprat.
It arises in neither from penury of thought. --Landor.
2. Penuriousness; miserliness. [Obs.] --Jer. Taylor.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
noun
1: a state of extreme poverty or destitution; "their indigence appalled him"; "a general state of need exists among the homeless" [syn: {indigence}, {need}, {beggary}, {pauperism}, {pauperization}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
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
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