penniless
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Middle English penyles, penylees; equivalent to penny + -less. Compare Old Norse penningalauss (“penniless”).
Pronunciation
Adjective
penniless (not comparable)
- Lacking even the smallest amount of money.
- Synonyms: farthingless; moneyless; destitute; see also Thesaurus:impoverished
- Antonyms: see Thesaurus:rich
- In societies without national insurance of any kind, almshouses are the last refuge of penniless people.
- In a functioning digital economy, being cashless is far different from being penniless, because cash is merely one form of money; but some preppers hoard gold in case the system gets destroyed and cashlessness suddenly becomes pennilessness.
- 1889, Horatio Alger, chapter 10, in Driven From Home:
- A dollar and a quarter seems a small sum, but if you are absolutely penniless it might as well be a thousand.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything. In a moment she had dropped to the level of a casual labourer.
- (numismatics, of a country's system of money) Abstaining from the use of penny coins, despite having fully decimalized currency, via rounding of cash transactions (but not necessarily of cashless ones).
- Canada became a penniless country in 2013 simply by rounding its cash transactions to the nearest nickel but otherwise not changing anything.
Derived terms
Translations
utterly without money
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