impecunious

play

adjective im·pe·cu·nious \ ˌim-pi-ˈkyü-nyəs , -nē-əs \

Definition of impecunious

:having very little or no money usually habitually :penniless

—

impecuniosity

play \ˌim-pi-ˌkyü-nē-ˈä-sə-tē\ noun

—

impecuniously

adverb

—

impecuniousness

noun

See impecunious defined for English-language learners

See impecunious defined for kids

impecunious was our Word of the Day on 07/29/2008. Hear the podcast!

Examples of impecunious in a Sentence

they were so impecunious that they couldn't afford to give one another even token Christmas gifts

Recent Examples of impecunious from the Web

But first, some background: Aged 29, ink-stained and impecunious, Stevenson rented a garret at the top of a boarding house in San Francisco from December 1879 to April 1880.

— special to the washington post, The Denver Post, "Robert Louis Stevenson’s “lost novel” is a fantastic voyage," 31 Mar. 2017
I.T. specialists, professionals and retirees are descending on the town, squeezing out the more chilled-out — and impecunious — population.

— tony perrottet, New York Times, "36 Hours in Boulder, Colo. AUG. 18, 2016," 31 Aug. 2016

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'impecunious.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

If impecunious means "penniless," then it stands to reason that "pecunious" can describe someone who has a lot of money. That is true, but "pecunious" is used with far less frequency in English than its opposite and is not found in many dictionaries. What's more, on the rare occasion when "pecunious" is put to use in English, it often means not "wealthy" but "miserly or ungenerous," as in "a pecunious attitude toward the less fortunate." "Impecunious" describes somebody who lacks the money to buy necessities, but it does not carry the connotation of desperation found in such words as "indigent" or "destitute." Both "pecunious" and "impecunious" derive via Middle English from the Latin pecunia, meaning "money."