penniless

English

Alternative forms

• pennyless

Etymology

From Middle English penyles, penylees; equivalent to penny +‎ -less. Compare Old Norse penningalauss (“penniless”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛ.nɪ.ləs/

Adjective

penniless (not comparable)

2. 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.

4. (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

• penniless-bench
• pennilessness

 

Translations

utterly without money

• Arabic: فقير (ar)
• Bengali: নিকড়িয়া (bn) (nikoṛiẏa), কপর্দকশূন্য (bn) (kopordokśunno)
• Breton: didra (br)
• Bulgarian: безпаричен (bg) (bezparičen)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 一貧如洗／一贫如洗 (zh) (yīpínrúxǐ), 身無分文／身无分文 (zh) (shēnwúfēnwén), 囊空如洗 (zh) (nángkōngrúxǐ), 不名一文 (zh) (bùmíngyīwén), 一文不名 (zh) (yīwénbùmíng)

• Esperanto: senmona
• Finnish: pennitön (fi)
• French: sans le sou (fr)
• German: mittellos (de), ohne Geld, ohne einen Pfennig
• Greek: απένταρος (el) (apéntaros)
• Hindi: निकौड़िया m (nikauṛiyā)
• Hungarian: nincstelen (hu)
• Indonesian: melarat (id), fakir (id)
• Italian: spiantato (it), squattrinato (it), scannato (it)
• Japanese: 一文無し (ja) (いちもんなし, ichimonnashi), 無一文 (ja) (むいちもん, muichimon), 文無し (もんなし, monnashi)
• Korean: 무일푼인 (mu'ilpun-in)
• Malay: fakir (ms)
• Norwegian: pengelens (no)
• Polish: bez grosza przy duszy (pl)
• Portuguese: paupérrimo (pt)
• Russian: безде́нежный (ru) (bezdénežnyj), без гроша́ (bez grošá), без копе́йки (bez kopéjki), на мели́ (ru) (na melí)
• Spanish: miserable (es)
• Ukrainian: безгрошови́й (uk) (bezhrošovýj), без гро́шей (bez hróšej)
• Volapük: nenpänidik, nenmonik