penury
Severe material want
Penury is extreme poverty or destitution.
The word is formal and literary, suggesting not just lack of money but genuine hardship: The family lived in penury after the factory closed.
It can also describe severe scarcity more broadly: a penury of ideas.
Extreme poverty, total want
- pauperismCondition of being destitute
- impoverishmentState of extreme deprivation
- pennilessnessComplete lack of funds
- beggaryExtreme, abject poverty
neediness · squalor · homelessness · deprivation · bankruptcy · insolvency · debt · dispossession
Lack of necessities
- sufferingSustained experience of distress
- adversitySevere difficulty or suffering
- struggleLabored effort against resistance
- difficultyState of being hard
distress · affliction · tribulation · ordeal · misfortune · woe · anguish · misery
Acute shortage of something
- paucityInsufficiency of amount
- lackDeficiency or absence
- shortageDeficient supply of necessities
- insufficiencyShortfall in amount needed
deficit · meagerness · sparsity · inadequacy · want · deficiency · exiguity · undersupply
Economical resource management
- thriftCareful use of resources
- parsimonyExcessive frugality with resources
- economySystem of trade and production
- self-denialRestraining one's own desires
abstinence · spareness · simplicity · restraint · scrimping · penny-pinching · tightening · belt-tightening
indigence
Extreme poverty, total want
- pauperismCondition of being destitute
- impoverishmentState of extreme deprivation
- pennilessnessComplete lack of funds
beggary · neediness · squalor · homelessness · deprivation · bankruptcy · insolvency · debt · dispossession · ruin
privation
Lack of necessities
- sufferingSustained experience of distress
- adversitySevere difficulty or suffering
- struggleLabored effort against resistance
difficulty · distress · affliction · tribulation · ordeal · misfortune · woe · anguish · misery · deprivation
dearth
Acute shortage of something
insufficiency · deficit · meagerness · sparsity · inadequacy · want · deficiency · exiguity · undersupply · leanness
frugality
Economical resource management
- thriftCareful use of resources
- parsimonyExcessive frugality with resources
- economySystem of trade and production
self-denial · abstinence · spareness · simplicity · restraint · scrimping · penny-pinching · tightening · belt-tightening · bare-bones
- povertypoverty line, poor, poverty rate, impoverished, generational poverty
- hard timeshardship, struggle, struggling, unemployment, tough times
- hardshiphardship, adversity, difficulty, trouble, struggle
- deprivationlack, deprivation, need, want, shortage
- scarcityscarcity, scarce, shortage, scant, scanty
- subsistencefood, hunger, starvation, basic needs, sustenance
penurywealth
Abundance of valuable resources
affluence · prosperity · opulence · riches · richness
penuryabundance
Ample supply, overflowing
plenty · lavishness · profusion · plentifulness · surplus