Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Penury

Penury , noun

[Latin penuria; compare Greek {not transcribed} hunger, {not transcribed} poverty, need, {not transcribed} one who works for his daily bread, a poor man, {not transcribed} to work for one's daily bread, to be poor: compare French pénurie.]

1.
Absence of resources; want; privation; indigence; extreme poverty; destitution.
A penury of military forces. — Bacon
They were exposed to hardship and penury. — Sprat
It arises in neither from penury of thought. — Landor
2.
Penuriousness; miserliness. [Obsolete] — Jer. Taylor