Penniless

//ˈpɛ.nɪ.ləs// adj

adj ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Lacking even the smallest amount of money. figuratively, not-comparable

    "In societies without national insurance of any kind, almshouses are the last refuge of penniless people."

  2. 2
    Of a country's system of money, abstaining from the use of penny coins, despite having fully decimalized currency, by means of rounding of cash transactions (but not necessarily of cashless ones). not-comparable

    "Canada became a penniless country in 2013 simply by rounding its cash transactions to the nearest nickel but otherwise not changing anything."

Adjective
  1. 1
    not having enough money to pay for necessities wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
;almslessarmbadly offbankruptbeggared

Example

More examples

"For one thing, I'm penniless; for another, I don't have the time."

Etymology

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

Related phrases

penniless-bench

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.