Penury, n.
Etymology: [L. penuria; cf. Gr. pénurie.]
1. Absence of resources; want; privation; indigence; extreme poverty; destitution. "A penury of military forces." Bacon. They were exposed to hardship and penury. Sprat. It arises in neither from penury of thought. Landor.
2. Penuriousness; miserliness. [Obs.] Jer. Taylor.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for penury; he lists it under poverty.
Where he writes about it:
Poverty denotes strictly lack of property or adequate means of support, but in common use is a relative term denoting any condition below that of easy, comfortable living; privation denotes a condition of painful lack of what is useful or desirable, tho not to the extent of absolute distress; indigence is lack of ordinary means of subsistence; destitution is lack of the comforts, and in part even of the necessaries of life; penury is especially cramping poverty, possibly not so sharp as destitution, but continuous, while that may be temporary; pauperism is such destitution as throws one upon organized public charity for support; beggary and mendicancy denote poverty that appeals for indiscriminate private charity. — from poverty
Antonyms
none given