- Today's Word
Penurious
peh-NYOOR-ee-us
Definition
(adjective) Extremely unwilling to spend money; miserly and stingy to a degree that causes hardship for others.
Example
The penurious landlord refused to replace the building’s broken heating system for three winters running, calculating that complaints were cheaper to ignore than repairs were to make.
Word Origin
Penurious derives from the Latin penuria, meaning “want” or “scarcity,” rooted in the Greek penia meaning “poverty.” It entered English in the 16th century carrying both its literal sense of genuine poverty and its more cutting figurative sense of someone who hoards wealth despite having it — the distinction between being poor and merely acting poor being central to the word’s particular sting.
Fun Fact
Ebenezer Scrooge of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is literature’s most celebrated penurious character — but the real-world inspiration may have been John Elwes, an 18th century English politician and miser of almost supernatural dedication. Elwes inherited a fortune, lived in crumbling houses to avoid repair costs, ate rotting food rather than buy fresh, and wore rags while sitting on investments worth millions. He once walked home in a rainstorm rather than pay for a carriage, then spent weeks in bed recovering from the resulting illness — costing him far more than the ride would have. Dickens almost certainly knew of Elwes, and the parallels to Scrooge are impossible to ignore.