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''impecunious'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904120411-00-⌔
impecunious - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Adjective
impecunious (not comparable)
- Lacking money. [from 1596]
- ✤ When I, good friends, was called to the bar,
I’d an appetite fresh and hearty,
But I was, as many young barristers are,
An impecunious party.1- ✤ “Then what became of her?”2
- ✤ [I]t would be a simple matter, sir, to find some impecunious author who would be glad to do the actual composition of the volume for a small fee.3
- ✤ The Rhymney (51 route miles), once an impecunious hanger-on of the Taff Vale, had enjoyed its own route through Caerphilly into Cardiff since 1871, […].4
- ✤ “Her? Which ‘her’? The park is full of ‘hers.’”
- ✤ “The lady with the green feathers in her hat. A big Gainsborough hat. I am quite sure it was Miss Hartuff.”
- ✤ “Not improbably. I presume she does sometimes take the air. And possibly she may be the happy owner of a Gainsborough hat with green feathers.”
- ✤ “Don’t be frivolous, please. She was in that victoria.”
- ✤ “Then perhaps she was too impecunious to drive both ways.”
Etymology
From im- + pecunious, from Latin pecūniōsus, from pecūnia (“money”) + -ōsus (“full of”).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA: /ˌɪm.pəˈkjuː.ni.əs/, /ˌɪm.pɪˈkjuː.ni.əs/
- Audio (US): 🔊
- Rhymes: -uːniəs
Printed 2026-09-04.
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Link to original Footnotes
1875 March 25, William S. Gilbert, Trial by Jury: ↩
February 1896, Ground-swells, by Jeannette H. Walworth, published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine; page 183: ↩
1919, P. G. Wodehouse, “Leave it to Jeeves”, in My Man Jeeves: ↩
1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 158: ↩
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