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adjective

penurious

extremely poor; poverty-stricken

In a sentence

Six example sentences with penurious, each labelled with its topic.

  • Dickens gave the clerk a penurious household where one candle had to serve four children reading at the same table.

    Literature

  • Weavers displaced by the power loom spent penurious decades in cellars, pawning tools they had inherited from their fathers.

    History

  • The composer's penurious final years left him copying other people's scores for pennies while his operas filled foreign theaters.

    Music

  • The penurious painter traded canvases for meals, and the cafe that fed him now hangs a fortune on its walls.

    Art

  • Surveys of penurious households found that most spent more on transport to work than on food for the week.

    Economics

  • Spinoza chose a penurious life grinding lenses rather than accept a professorship that came with conditions on his writing.

    Philosophy

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Found in these word lists

Found in 5 published word listsRecognized

Each source is a published word list that contains penurious. No exam board publishes an official GRE, GMAT or SAT list; GMAT words come from GRE lists and the Academic Word List.