penurious
/pi'njuəriəs/
Definition
- Adjective:
- Extremely unwilling to spend money; stingy: Describes a person who is excessively frugal or miserly, often to the point of denying themselves and others basic comforts or pleasures.
- Very poor; lacking money for necessities: Describes a state of extreme poverty or financial hardship where one cannot afford basic needs.
Examples of Usage
- Describing stinginess:
- His penurious habits meant he never contributed to office gifts.
- Despite his wealth, he led a penurious life, reusing tea bags to save money.
- Describing poverty:
- The penurious family could not afford proper heating during the winter.
- After the factory closed, the town was left in a penurious state.
Advanced Usage
- "penurious of": This formal construction emphasizes a severe lack or scarcity of something non-material, such as time, affection, or praise.
- The manager was penurious of compliments, making his rare praise highly valued.
- Comparative and Superlative Forms: "more penurious," "most penurious." While grammatically correct, these are less common as the adjective already denotes an extreme state.
Variants and Related Words
- Penuriously (adverb): In a stingy or poverty-stricken manner.
- He lived penuriously, counting every penny.
- Penuriousness (noun): The state or quality of being penurious (either stinginess or poverty).
- The penuriousness of his existence was heartbreaking.
Synonyms
- For 'stingy': Parsimonious, miserly, niggardly, tightfisted, cheap.
- For 'poor': Impoverished, destitute, indigent, poverty-stricken, impecunious.
Antonyms
- For 'stingy': Generous, lavish, extravagant, munificent, open-handed.
- For 'poor': Wealthy, affluent, prosperous, opulent.
Related Idioms and Phrases
- "Penny-pinching": (Idiom, adjective/noun) Very careful about spending small amounts of money; similar in meaning to the 'stingy' sense of .
- His penny-pinching ways made the vacation miserable for everyone.
- "To be on the breadline": (Idiom) To be very poor; similar to the 'poverty' sense of .
- Many families were on the breadline during the recession.
Adjective
-
excessively unwilling to spend
-
parsimonious thrift relieved by few generous impulses
-
lived in a most penurious manner--denying himself every indulgence
-
-
not having enough money to pay for necessities
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