penniless
/ˈpɛnɪləs
/adjective
(Of a person) having no money; very poor: a penniless young student...
- We were completely penniless, with three young children, helpless in an unfamiliar city.
- I was penniless and facing bankruptcy and the prospect of being prosecuted in court for a whole range of civil and criminal offences.
- I had used all the money to get to England so I was penniless in a foreign land with only the clothes on my back and my sword to my name.
Synonyms
poor, indigent, impoverished, penurious, impecunious, in penury, moneyless, without a sou, as poor as a church mouse, poverty-stricken, destitute, necessitous;
bankrupt, bust, insolvent;
needy, in need/want, badly off, in reduced circumstances, in straitened circumstances, hard up, on one's beam-ends, unable to make ends meet, underprivileged;
British on the breadline, without a penny (to one's name)
informal broke, flat broke, cleaned out, strapped for cash, strapped, on one's uppers, without two pennies/(brass) farthings to rub together
British informal stony broke, skint, in Queer Street
North American informal stone broke
rare pauperized, beggared
Derivatives
pennilessness
- Financial difficulty had evolved into pennilessness, and with no ordinary work available she had been at her wits' end.
- During the years of the Second Dutch War, opposition in Parliament frequently blamed the Crown's chronic pennilessness and mismanagement of the war on official corruption and the cost of the mistresses.
- She argued that their pennilessness had been caused by the insurer's wrongful repudiation of the policy, but the court rejected that argument.