How to Use impecunious in a Sentence

impecunious

adjective
  • Machen’s father was an impecunious clergyman, his mother an invalid, and their son a solitary but not lonely child.
    — Michael Dirda, The New York Review of Books, 28 May 2020
  • Since then, it has been performed across much of the world, being ideally suited to these impecunious times and very masterfully written.
    — Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune, 13 Mar. 2026
  • New Jersey, one of the most impecunious states in the union, was behind this week’s Supreme Court ruling overturning a federal ban on sports gambling.
    — Holman Jenkins, WSJ, 18 May 2018
  • Traumatized into silence, the de facto orphan stays living with the kindly but guilt-ridden, grieving and impecunious Hiroshi.
    — Jessica Kiang, Variety, 12 June 2026
  • Tyndall’s life began humbly, in a respectable but impecunious Irish family whose Protestant roots shaped his lifelong opposition to home rule.
    — Peter Pesic, WSJ, 9 Aug. 2018
  • To sum things up without any spoilers (though the big reveal comes not long into the play, so the term spoiler is relative), impecunious book scout Edmund (Stewart) is facing eviction.
    — F. Kathleen Foley, latimes.com, 25 May 2018
  • However, the amateurs Tracksmith has in mind are not so much the impecunious would-be professionals of the past but today’s hardcore hobbyists—the bane of every relaxed camping trip.
    — Martin Fritz Huber, Outside Online, 11 Jan. 2021
  • The son of an impecunious Prussian high-school teacher, Helmholtz originally wanted to be a physicist, but economic necessity led him to become an army surgeon.
    — Peter Pesic, WSJ, 22 Nov. 2018
  • When that diversity eventually dwindled, as foreign investors and the banking class overtook the impecunious artistic one, Manhattan club life began to lose some of its vigor.
    — Guy Trebay, Town & Country, 3 Dec. 2020
  • Lord Dundonald, an impecunious earl with an inventive streak, patented the processing of smelting coke—a key development, converting coal to a nearly pure carbon state that produced an easy-to-work iron.
    — Charles R. Morris, WSJ, 21 June 2018
  • Once the pioneers of modern design on the Vineyard were impecunious architects and academics, while today only the very wealthy can afford to build on what has become incredibly desirable real estate.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 6 June 2021
  • Private-equity firms, which have mountains of committed investor cash, may start buying up fundamentally sound but impecunious suppliers in various industries, aware that when demand returns such companies will see its first fruits.
    — The Economist, 8 Apr. 2020
  • Cowley graduated in 1920, and for a year and a half lived an adventurous, impecunious Grub Street life in New York, before a fellowship took him, now married, back to France for a master’s in French.
    — Michael Gorra, The Atlantic, 4 Nov. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'impecunious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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