| 释义 |
penury|ˈpɛnjʊərɪ|
Also 5 pennury, penowry, (punyrie).
[ad. L. pēnūria or pænūria want, need; perh. through F. pénurie (15th c. in Littré).]
1. The condition of being destitute of or straitened in the necessaries of life; destitution, indigence, want; poverty.
1432–50tr. Higden (Rolls) V. 51 Origenes, lefte in grete pennury [in summa penuria], helde a scole of grammar at Alexandrye. c1489Caxton Sonnes of Aymon iv. 121 Late vs goo agenst her..and tell her our grete penurye and our nede. 1526Tindale Luke xxi. 4 But she of her penury [so 1611; 1881 R.V. want] hath cast in all the substaunce that she hadde. 1600Shakes. A.Y.L. i. i. 42 Shall I keepe your hogs, and eat huskes with them? What prodigall portion haue I spent, that I should come to such penury? 1624Donne Serm., Isa. vii. 14 (1640) 13 The sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries. 1750Gray Elegy 51 Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage. a1839Praed Poems (1864) II. 237 Penury with love, I will not doubt it, Is better far than palaces without it. 1874Green Short Hist. ix. §5. 645 Shaftesbury's course rested..on the belief that the penury of the Treasury left Charles at his mercy.
2. Lack, dearth, scarcity, scantness, insufficiency, want (of something material or immaterial).
1447in Epist. Acad. Oxon. (O.H.S.) I. 261 Þe gret..multitude of scolars, and the gret penury of boks þat ben amang us. 1454Rolls of Parlt. V. 272/1 The greet punyrie and scarsite of money. 1615G. Sandys Trav. 97 In a maruellous penury of water. 1699Garth Dispens. v. 65 You owe..to your stars your penury of sense. 1779J. Moore View Soc. Fr. (1789) I. viii. 50 There is an absolute penury of public news. 1839De Quincey Recoll. Lakes Wks. 1862 II. 127 In early youth I laboured under a peculiar embarrassment and penury of words.
3. Penuriousness, miserliness, parsimoniousness. Now rare.
1651Jer. Taylor Serm. for Year ii. x. 130 God sometimes punishes..idlenesse with vanity, penury with oppression. 1685Dryden Thren. August. 500 Let them not still be obstinately blind,..with malignant penury To starve the royal vertues of his mind. 1754Foote Knights i. Wks. 1799 I. 62 He is a thrifty, wary, man... The very abstract of penury! 1806Metcalfe in Owen Wellesley's Desp. 810 When, by a cold penury, I blast the abilities of a nation, the ill I may do is beyond all calculation. 1871R. Ellis Catullus xxiii. 4 A father and a step-dame Each for penury fit to tooth a flint-stone. |