- Today's Word
Penurious
puh-NYOOR-ee-uhs
Definition
- (adjective) Extremely poor; unwilling to spend money; stingy.
Example
The penurious landlord refused to fix the broken heating system during winter.
Fun Fact
“Penurious” shares roots with the word penury, meaning extreme poverty. But beyond being poor, it also implies miserly behavior—think Ebenezer Scrooge before his Christmas transformation. The word paints a picture of both lack and refusal: having little and holding tight to what little one has.
(adjective) Relating to a distinctive habit, mannerism, or characteristic peculiar to an individual.
Her idiosyncratic habit of color-coding every notebook she owned was odd to others but essential to her.
Idiosyncratic traces back to the Greek idiosynkrasia, a combination of idios (“one’s own”), syn (“together”), and krasis (“mixture” or “temperament”). The word was originally used in medicine to describe a patient’s unique physical constitution or reaction to substances — a blend of qualities belonging only to that individual.