penury
pen·u·ry/ˈpɛnjəɹi/noun
penury is spelled P-E-N-U-R-Y: 6 letters and 3 syllables (pen·u·ry). It appears about once in every 8 million words in written English, the 85,266th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, penury means “Extreme need or want; destitution, poverty; (countable) an instance of this” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of penury is penuries.
How many letters and syllables are in penury?
| Letters | 6: P-E-N-U-R-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: pen·u·ry |
| In writing | about once in every 8 million words; the 85,266th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is penury?
Penury appears about once in every 8 million words in written English, the 85,266th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce penury?
- UK /ˈpɛnjʊɹi/
- US /ˈpɛnjəɹi/
Penury has 3 syllables, split pen·u·ry in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-penury.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-penury.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of penury
- penuries plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does penury mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Extreme need or want; destitution, poverty; (countable) an instance of this.
- 2
Often followed by of: a lack of something; a dearth, a scarcity.
- 3
obsoleteThe quality of being miserly; miserliness, parsimoniousness, stinginess.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Penury in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Spanish | pauperismo, pobreza, pobrisimo |
| French | pénurie |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does penury come from?
From Late Middle English penuri, penurie (“destitution, need, poverty; dearth, lack, scarcity”), borrowed from Latin pēnūria (“need, scarcity, want”) + Middle English -i, -ie (suffix forming abstract and collective nouns); further etymology uncertain, possibly related to paene (“almost, nearly; barely, hardly, scarcely”, adverb), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *peh₁- (“to hate; to hurt”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).