penury
extreme poverty or destitution
Word origin: From Latin penuria, want or scarcity.
Penury in a sentence
Here are example sentences showing penury in a sentence.
The artist spent his final years in penury, selling work for pennies.
The diaries record the artist's slide from modest comfort into outright penury.
Using “penury” well
Penury denotes severe, grinding poverty, a far stronger word than mere want. Distinguish it from penurious, the adjective meaning stingy or destitute.
More GRE words starting with P
to calm or soothe someone who is angry or agitated
a song or expression of joyful praise or triumph
done with careful and thorough effort
agreeable to the taste or acceptable to the mind
resembling a palace in size or grandeur
rebirth, regeneration, or renewal into a new existence
to ease the severity of something without curing it
pale or lacking vitality and color
Questions about “penury”
Learn words the way the GRE tests them.
Vocabulary sticks when you meet it in real sentences. Practise these words inside text completion and sentence equivalence questions.