Definition of impecunious
:having very little or no money usually habitually :penniless
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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
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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.
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I.T. specialists, professionals and retirees are descending on the town, squeezing out the more chilled-out — and impecunious — population.
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."
impecunious Synonyms
Synonyms
beggared, beggarly, broke, destitute, dirt-poor, down-and-out, famished, hard up, poor, impoverished, indigent, necessitous, needful, needy, pauperized, penniless, penurious, poverty-stricken, skint [chiefly British], threadbareAntonyms
affluent, deep-pocketed, fat, fat-cat, flush, moneyed (also monied), opulent, rich, silk-stocking, wealthy, well-heeled, well-off, well-to-doRelated Words
deprived, disadvantaged, dispossessed, unaffluent, underprivileged; bankrupt, bankrupted, bust (or busted), insolvent; possessionless, ruined; depressed, distressed, hand-to-mouth, hardscrabble, pinched, poorish, reduced, straitened; cash-strapped, low, short, tapped outNear Antonyms
comfortable, prosperousIMPECUNIOUS Defined for English Language Learners
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Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for impecunious Spanish Central: Translation of impecunious Nglish: Translation of impecunious for Spanish speakers
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